GOES satellite sees a triple header in the tropics

The GOES-13 satellite captured a triple-header in the tropics today when it captured three tropical cyclones in one image in the Northern Hemisphere.

A visible image taken from the GOES-13 satellite on July 20 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT) and shows a consolidating low pressure area called System 99L in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Bret several hundred miles east of South Carolina, and a large Hurricane Dora off the west coast of Mexico. The image was created by the NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

System 99L is a low pressure area that may to reach tropical depression status in the next day or two. It is located about 550 miles east-northeast of Bermuda and is moving to the northeast at 20 mph.

At 2 p.m. EDT on July 20, satellite imagery showed that showers and thunderstorms have become better organized within System 99L. The low-level circulation is also becoming better defined and the storm appears primed to become a tropical depression. If that happens, it would be Tropical Depression 3 (TD3) in the Atlantic Ocean basin. The National Hurricane Center gives it a 90 percent chance of coming together as TD3 in the next 48 hours.

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