Rita was passing through the Florida Straits

The last image was taken at 08:28 UTC (4:28 am EDT) on the 20th of September as Rita was passing through the Florida Straits. Although the center of Rita does not fall within the PR swath, it is obvious from TRMM that Rita is becoming better organized. A ragged eye is present surrounded by areas of moderate rain (green areas) with good banding in the outer rainbands, all signs that the storm's circulation is improving. Rita was still a tropical storm at the time of this image with sustained winds of 60 knots (69 mph), but by early afternoon the same day, Rita would become a Category 2 hurricane as it passed south of the Florida Keys headed for the Gulf of Mexico. + High resolution image TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Credit: NASA/Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).