8. Surface winds over the Pacific Ocean as measured by NASA's space-based Scatterometer on September 21, 1996. The colors indicate wind speeds according to the scale on the right. Arrows indicate wind direction.
The image also shows the location of two typhoons in the northwestern Pacific, typhoons Violet and Tom. According to the scatterometer data, the winds in both typhoons reached speeds of about sixty miles per hour.
The data for the above image were obtained by NASA's Scatterometer onboard the Japanese weather satellite, the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS). On June 30, 1997, the ADEOS spacecraft failed after roughly ten-and-a-half months of operation.
Image Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.