Hurricane Isaias reaches Category 3 intensity off the US Gulf Coast, eventually making landfall along the Florida Panhandle
Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided GOES-19 (GOES-East) images at 30-second intervals — Infrared Window imagery (above) showed Hurricane Isaias moving toward the US Gulf Coast on 09 October 2026. Isaias reached Category 3 intensity at 1220 UTC (Infrared image | NHC advisory). The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -85 to -88 C range (darker shades of purple). GLM Flash Points displayed occasional lightning activity within the core of Isaias.
Although Isaias was moving through an environment of rather high southwesterly vertical wind shear (below), the shear direction generally aligning with the storm motion likely helped to mitigate unfavorable shear effects.
Isaias passed over a patch of fairly high Ocean Heat Content (below), which may have played a role in its intensification to Category 3.
While Isaias was still a Category 2 storm, a well-defined eye was depicted in microwave imagery from ATMS and DMSP-18 (below).
Wind shear, ocean heat content and microwave imagery was sourced from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site.
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30-second GOES-19 Infrared Window images (below) showed a closer view of Category 3 Hurricane Isaias as it eventually made landfall near Destin, Florida (METAR identifier KDTS) at 0130 UTC on 10 October.
Shortly after the time of landfall, Isaias produced a wind gust of 99 knots (116 mph) at Whiting Field Naval Air Station KNDZ (below).
