Typhoon Maria and two other typhoons were spinning over the western Pacific Ocean on August 7, 2006, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image. The strongest of the three, Typhoon Saomai, formed in the western Pacific on August 4, 2006, as a tropical depression. Within a day, it had become organized enough to be classified as a tropical storm. While Saomai was strengthening into a storm, another tropical depression formed a few hundred kilometers to the north, and by August 6, it became tropical storm Maria. Tropical storm Bopha formed just as Maria reached storm status and became a storm itself on August 7.

As of August 7, the University of Hawaii’s Tropical Storm Information Center predicted that Maria would move northwest across the southern end of Japan. Maria and Bopha were projected to remain near their current strengths while Saomai was predicted to gather strength.