NOAA's GOES-East satellite Monitoring Atlantic Hurricane Gonzalo - Video

On Oct. 15 at 11:15 a.m. EDT NOAA's GOES-East satellite saw Gonzalo had tightly wrapped bands of thunderstorms spiraling into the center of its circulation. 

Credit: NASA /NOAA GOES Project

Hurricane Gonzalo has made the jump to major hurricane status and on Oct. 15 was a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided imagery of the storm.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Gonzalo is the first category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic basin since Ophelia in 2011.

NOAA's GOES-East satellite provides visible and infrared images of weather from its orbit in a fixed position over the Earth.

On Oct. 15 at 15:15 UTC (11:15 a.m. EDT) GOES saw Gonzalo had tightly wrapped bands of thunderstorms spiraling into the center of its circulation.

The eye of the storm was obscured by high clouds in the image.

NOAA aircraft data and microwave images clearly show concentric eyewalls, with the inner radius of maximum winds now only about 4-5 nautical miles from the center.

At 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 15, Gonzalo's maximum sustained winds increased to near 130 mph (215 kph) and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that fluctuations in intensity are expected over the next couple of days.

Gonzalo's cloud-covered eye was located near latitude 23.5 north and longitude 68.0 west, about 640 miles (1,025 km) south-southwest of Bermuda.

Gonzalo is moving toward the northwest near 12 mph (19 kph).

The minimum central pressure recently reported by an air force reconnaissance aircraft was 949 millibars.


This animation of visible and infrared images from NOAA's GOES-East satellite shows the movement and strengthening of Gonzalo from a tropical storm on Oct. 13 to a hurricane on Oct. 15 north of Puerto Rico. 

Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

Tropical storm conditions are possible in Bermuda by late Thursday night, Oct. 16, and hurricane conditions are possible over Bermuda on Friday Oct. 16.

Ocean swells however, will be felt over a much larger area, reached the U.S. east coast on Oct. 16. Large swells generated by Gonzalo are affecting portions of the Virgin Islands, the northern coasts of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and portions of the Bahamas. Swells will reach much of the east coast of the United States and Bermuda on Thursday.

By late Oct. 16, Gonzalo is expected to turn to the northeast and the center is expected to approach Bermuda sometime on Oct. 17.

Hurricane Gonzalo Threat Delays Antares Rocket Launch for NASA

Hurricane Gonzalo has pushed the next private cargo mission to the International Space Station back by at least three days.

Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft was scheduled to blast off on an unmanned supply run to the orbiting lab from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Oct. 24.

But that liftoff has been delayed until at least Oct. 27 because Gonzalo is about to hit Bermuda, where key tracking equipment for Cygnus spacecraft' Antares rocket is located.

"Once the hurricane has passed Bermuda, a team from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Range will return to the tracking site to assess the situation and begin the process of re-enabling the site's functionality to support the launch," Orbital Sciences representatives wrote in a mission update Wednesday (Oct. 15).

"Depending on the impact of the storm on Bermuda's essential infrastructure systems such as transportation, power and communications, the launch date could be moved later" than Oct. 27, they added.

Whenever it takes place, the Cygnus/Antares launch will kick off Virginia-based Orbital Sciences' third robotic cargo mission to the space station for NASA.

The company signed a $1.9 billion deal with the agency to complete eight such flights.



California-based SpaceX also makes unmanned supply runs to the orbiting lab for NASA using its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX's $1.6 billion contract calls for the firm to fly 12 missions; it has completed three of them to date and is in the middle of the fourth.

Gonzalo took shape as a tropical storm on Sunday (Oct. 12) and intensified into a hurricane on Tuesday (Oct. 14). By Wednesday, Gonzalo rated as a Category 4 hurricane, meaning it boasted maximum sustained winds between 130 and 156 mph (209 to 251 km/h).