Remnants of Hurricane Isaias deepen past Iceland with a gust of 205 km/h

21 October 2026

The remnants of Hurricane Isaias, the only Atlantic hurricane of 2026 at the time, moved east over the North Atlantic on the jet stream and became an extratropical cyclone near Iceland. Isaias had made landfall in Florida as a Category 2 storm on 9 October. The VIIRS instrument on the NOAA-21 satellite captured the storm on the afternoon of 14 October. Air pressure fell by more than 50 hectopascals in 24 hours, about double the threshold for bombogenesis, or explosive cyclogenesis. A gust of 205 km/h, or 128 mph, was recorded near the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in southern Iceland, and sustained winds of 150 km/h, or 93 mph, were recorded on a small offshore island. Northwestern Scotland saw gusts up to 90 km/h, or 55 mph, on 14 October, and several Scottish ferry routes were cancelled. Damaging winds reached northern Iceland, where residents also prepared for sleet and snow. Some meteorologists think the storm may have set a new October low for barometric pressure in Iceland, after correcting for altitude, which would break a record dating to 1963. The image was published as the NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day for 21 October 2026.