Alert! NASA Spots Brewing Major Hurricane

On Sunday, Tropical Depression 20 formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. By Monday it turned into a new hurricane which was named Seymour. Now, NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite suggests that Hurrican Seymour will explode into a major hurricane.

According to Eurekalert, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of the storm which showed Hurricane Seymour was a Category 2 hurricane with a maximum sustained winds rapidly increased to near 100 mph (155 kph). Hours later, NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite found that Hurricane Seymour is rapidly intensifying.

An animation to showing the development of Tropical Depression 20 from October 21-24 was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

By Tuesday, its maximum sustained winds increased to 115 mph and it become a major Category 3 hurricane in the Pacific.

Quoting National Hurricane Center Forecaster Kimberlain, Phys.org reported: "Seymour's cloud pattern continues to increase in organization. The cyclone's small central dense overcast has become circular and increasingly symmetric since the last advisory, with plenty of cold-topped deep convection, particularly near the center."

Houston Chronicle reported that Hurricane Seymour is centered about 565 miles (909 kilometers) south-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula and is moving west near 15 mph (24 kph).

While Hurricane Seymour will remain offshore and isn't threatening any land, it could feed into a system expected to impact Southern California Thursday into Friday.

According to NASA, hurricane is formed over warm ocean waters near the equator when the warm, moist air over the ocean rises upward from near the surface. Only tropical cyclones (general scientific term,) that form over the Atlantic Ocean or eastern Pacific Ocean are tagged as "hurricanes,' others are called typhoons or cyclones, depending where these storms occur.