File:Usagi 31 july 2007 0355Z.jpg

The fourth typhoon of 2007 in the western Pacific, Typhoon Usagi was just southwest of Japan’s Volcano Islands, which include Iwo Jima, on July 31, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. The storm had become a Category Two storm on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with winds of 167 kilometers per hour (90 knots or 104 miles per hour) and gusts to 200 km/hr (110 knots or 127 mph), according to Unisys Weather. Forecasts from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center predicted that Usagi would strengthen into a Category Four storm and weaken slightly before striking southern Japan on August 2.

The outermost bands of Typhoon Usagi sit over the Volcano Islands in the north and touch the Northern Mariana Islands in the south in this image. Guam is under the outermost fringe in the storm in the lower right corner of the image. Usagi was arcing northeast over the North Pacific, channeling haze ahead of it. The haze casts a dingy white veil on the upper left corner of the image. It probably originated from large wildfires in southeastern Siberia or from industrial pollution in China.