The eye of Typhoon Megi
The eye of Typhoon Megi
This image of the eye of Typhoon Megi shows that, inside its eye the water is extremely calm – there is no rain or wind to ripple the surface. This means that hardly any radar signals get returned to the satellite but are reflected off to the side instead. This is why TerraSAR-X portrays the eye of Megi as a black area, unlike the parts where white rings form a circle – this is where the wind produces a strong wave pattern and the rough surface reflects the majority of the satellite's radar signals back to it. A typhoon's wind speed is at its maximum around the eye – Megi's winds reached around 250 kilometres per hour at the time of image acquisition. This led to the typhoon being declared a level-5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with water levels rising by over 5.5 metres.
