Hurricane Irene strengthened on its path toward the continental United States in late August 2011. This is a relatively rare hurricane that threatens all of the US east coast. Residents of the U.S. East Coast braced for the first hurricane to seriously threaten the country in three years. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image at 2:15 p.m. local time (18:15 UTC) on August 24. Storm clouds hide the Turks and Caicos Islands, and extend westward over The Bahamas. Clouds also linger over the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Irene was a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles (195 kilometers) per hour.