NASA satellite picture of Tropical Cyclone Amanda
theweathernetwork.com
Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 10:06 AM - Here's a bird's eye view of Amanda, the first named storm of the 2014 hurricane season.
NASA's Aqua Satellite captured the shot of the tropical cyclone on Sunday as it swirled southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.
IN-DEPTH: Amanda quickly picked up hurricane status over the weekend becoming a Category 4 storm. According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, this was the strongest hurricane ever recorded during the month of May.
Tropical Storm Amanda is currently "meandering well southwest of Mexico," the NHC says and still poses no threat to land.
"Amanda has been meandering during the past 12 hours or so and is now moving toward the northeast near 4 km/h," adds the NHC. "A slightly fast northeastward motion is expected to begin later today and continue through Thursday night."
There are no coastal watches or warnings in place.
NASA
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains that hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are all the same weather phenomenon.
They use different names depending on where they form.
In the Atlantic and northeast Pacific, they are called hurricanes. The same system in the northwest Pacific is called a typhoon, and cyclones occur in the south Pacific and Indian Ocean.
