Hurricane Florence is the sixth named storm of the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Florence started as a tropical depression north and east of the South American coast, and since forming on September 3, it has grown in power and size only very gradually. As of September 11, 2006, it had become a Category One hurricane. It was not predicted to make landfall, but it had been brushing against Bermuda, not passing directly over the island, but bringing powerful winds, rain, and strong storm-generated surf as it passed as close as 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the island, according to the Reuters news wire.

This photo-like image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on September 11 2006, at 11:05 a.m. local time (15:05 UTC). Hurricane Florence at the time of this image was a large spiral open swirl spread over a wide area of the Atlantic Ocean. Florence had sustained winds of around 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) at the time this satellite image was acquired, according to The University of Hawaii’s Tropical Storm information center.