Typhoon Krosa was a powerful tropical storm system (the generic name for typhoon, hurricanes, and cyclones) on the morning of October 4, 2007. With sustained winds of over 210 kilometers per hour (130 miles per hour), it was just at the crest of being classified a Category Four Super Typhoon when NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over Krosa in the afternoon. The storm had been intensifying over the northeastern Philippine Sea for several days, and was expected, as of October 4, to head towards northern Taiwan and the Chinese mainland coast. The typhoon’s name, assigned by the Hong Kong Observatory, means crane in Khmer.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this photo-like image at 12:40 p.m. local time (4:40 UTC) on October 4, 2007. A sprawling system with tightly wound spiral arms and a large though cloud-filled (“closed”) eye, Krosa bore all the hallmarks of a large and powerful Pacific typhoon. Although the storm was observed by MODIS to be brushing up against the Philippines, it was not projected to pass over the islands, though the outer bands will certainly bring rains to Luzon, the northernmost island in the Philippine chain.