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Tropical Cyclone Ilsa made landfall in Western Australia around midnight local time on April 13, 2023. It was one of the most potent storms to hit the Pilbara area in recent years.
The NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite acquired this image of the storm at about 1:45 pm local time earlier that day. At the time, Isla was approaching the coast with winds of 240 kilometers (150 miles) per hour.
That equates to a category 5 storm on Australia’s intensity scale, which is equivalent to a category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Although the storm’s center had not yet reached the coast, its outer cloud bands were already interacting with land.
Notice that the storm appears to have a relatively small eye. Storms with such small eyes—sometimes called “pinhole” eyes—often spin faster and have more powerful winds. Hurricane Maria, which lashed Puerto Rico in 2017, also had a small eye. https://go.nasa.gov/404vTcF
