In September 1998, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic tropical season formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. It was given the name "Georges" (pronounced "Johrj") and it rapidly intensified into a hurricane. Early Sunday morning, September 20, the storm reached what would be its maximum intensity - sustained winds at 150 miles per hour.

Moving westward, Georges lost some strength before hitting the Lesser Antilles as a Category 2 storm. Hurricane Georges then hit the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the northern coast of Cuba. The mountains of Hispanola took the most out of Georges, weakening the storm to Category 1.

As Georges approached the Florida Keys, it strengthened again to a Category 2.

On September 25, 1998, Hurricane Georges entered the Gulf of Mexico after hitting portions of the Florida Keys directly. The storm began to strengthen over the open water and its forward speed began to diminish. Hurricane watches were posted from Louisiana to the western Florida coast.

Georges made landfall on the mainland United States just east of Biloxi, Mississippi in the early morning hours of September 28. At that point, the storm's forward progress ceased amost entirely and caused some prolific rains to fall over the Florida Panhandle and portions of Alabama.

Satellite images have been produced from data received from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite - 8 (GOES - 8) and the Polar-orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES). NOAA-12 and NOAA-14. For more images of Georges and other tropical storms, including storms from earlier this year, visit the Operational Significant Event Imagery server welcome page at http://www.osei.noaa.gov.

Latest OSEI Products

Multichannel color and grayscale composite images from GOES, NOAA-12 and NOAA-14.

	09/28/98 : 09:17 UTC: NOAA 14 HRPT 1 km Predawn image	Channels 3,4,5	Color
	09/27/98 : 2251 UTC: NOAA 12 HRPT 1 km Evening image	Channels 1,2,4	Color
	09/27/98 : 1745 UTC: GOES-8 - Three Tropical Systems	Channels 1,3,4	Color
	09/27/98 : 2054 UTC: NOAA 14 HRPT 1 km Afternoon image	Channels 1,2,4	Color
	09/27/98 : 1515 UTC: GOES-8	Channels 1,3,4	Color
	09/27/98 : 1131 UTC: NOAA 12 HRPT 1 km Predawn Image	Channels 3,4,5	Color
	09/26/98 : 1745 UTC: GOES-8 4 Tropical Systems	Channels 1,3,4	Color
	09/26/98 : 1745 UTC: GOES-8 "High View"	Channels 1,3,4	Color
	09/26/98 21:15 UTC: GOES-8	Channels 1,2,4	Color
	09/26/98 14:15 UTC: GOES-8	Channels 1,2,4	Color
	09/25/98 19:35 UTC: NOAA-14	Channels 1,2,4	Color
	Click here to view the directory of all Tropical Atlantic images.

Special Photo Composites

GOES-8 Montage of Hurricane Georges - a special composite image of the hurricane as it tracked over the Altantic and into the Gulf of Mexico.

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3 - This is Version 2 labeled with dates of images used.

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NESDIS, Satellite Services Division, IPB, Environmental Applications Team

Credits: Webpage design by Steve Ambrose/Fernando Sotelo
OSEI Images Processed by Fernando Sotelo/Rob Fennimore