NASA catches Melissa's fickle life as a tropical storm

NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured images that were made into an animation showing Melissa's conversion from a subtropical to tropical storm and now making another change.

NOAA's GOES-East satellite sits in a fixed position over the Atlantic Ocean and captures visible and infrared imagery continually. At the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. many images were combined into an animation to make a video that shows Melissa's transformations over Nov. 18 and Nov. 19.

On Nov 19 at 10 a.m. EST, Melissa's maximum sustained winds were near 50 mph/85 kph and it was bringing gale-force winds over parts of the western and central Azores Islands .

Melissa was centered near 40.0 north latitude and 34.8 west longitude, about 440 miles/710 kilometers west-northwest of the Azores. Melissa was moving to the east-northeast at a speedy 32 mph/52 kph and had a minimum central pressure near 984 millibars. The center of Melissa will pass north of the western Azores today, Nov. 21.

The National Hurricane Center expects Melissa to become post-tropical later today. Gradual weakening is forecast during the next two days.