This just in — the NASA/NOAA satellite GOES-14 has just released video taken on August 20 (that's today!) of Hurricane Bill, the first hurricane of the season. This spectacular video is a collection of a few quick movies put together by the GOES-14 team and includes an impressive zoom-out, showing how big the hurricane is, relative to the hemisphere. Yes, Bill is large, with sustained winds of 217 kph (135 mph), making it a powerful Category 4 storm. The winds extend outward up to 80 miles from the center. Bill stretches more than 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) across, and the storm’s partially cloud-filled eye is nearly 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide. See an image below of Bill from NASA's MODIS satellite, taken on August 19, 2009.

As of August 20 at 5 pm EDT, Hurricane Bill was located 790 miles SSE of Bermuda, while continuing to move quickly off to the northwest. Bill should begin turning in a more northerly direction by later Friday.

Based on all available forecast data at this time, it appears that Bill will track east of the Eastern U.S. Coast over the next few days.