The striking Suomi NPP satellite photo, taken Aug. 29, 2016, shows Hurricane Madeline on the left and Hurricane Lester on the right bearing down on Hawaii's Big Island, which is hidden on the left side of the image by reflected sunlight known as a sunglint.

Live Science describes the swirling clouds as eerily resembling the eyes of a pale face gazing up at space, and National Weather Service radar maps made the pair look like they were staring even harder.

The storms were the 14th and 13th named systems of 2016's Pacific hurricane season, which tallied 22 named storms, tying it for the sixth-most-active year on record.

Madeline peaked as a Category 4 storm on Aug. 30 with maximum winds around 130 mph (210 km/h), while Lester also briefly became a Category 4 on Sept.

1 before weakening to Category 3, according to Live Science. On Aug.

30, Madeline was just under 400 miles (650 km) from the Big Island, with Lester trailing about 900 miles (1,450 km) behind on the same trajectory, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning for Hawaii, warning that Madeline would pass "dangerously close to the Big Island." But Madeline passed south of the islands on Aug.

31, downgraded to Category 1, and Lester passed north of the Big Island on Sept. 2, coming within about 130 miles (210 km) of Honolulu before turning northward and petering out.

Despite sitting in the middle of the corridor where most Pacific hurricanes form, Hawaii's islands enjoy surprisingly good luck.

According to FOX Weather, two factors act as an invisible shield: the islands are surrounded by a near-constant area of high pressure on their eastern side, where most hurricanes come from, and strong winds often blow eastward across the islands, steering storms to skirt around them.

Live Science notes that Hurricane Kiko was similarly photographed from space bearing down on the state in 2025 before suddenly changing course and weakening at the last minute, just like Madeline and Lester.

Even without landfall, the 2016 pair still brought high winds, heavy rainfall and strong surf across the state.

The good luck may not hold.

Live Science reports that human-caused climate change and shifting regional weather patterns could erode Hawaii's natural defenses, pointing to August and September, when hurricanes Lowell and Lala skimmed unusually close past Kauai, damaging power lines, boats and other coastal infrastructure.

According to The Guardian, researchers think the ongoing "super" El Niño, which officially began in May and has already driven record-breaking Pacific sea surface temperatures, may be partially to blame for those storms.

That makes the ten-year-old twin-hurricane photo less a curiosity than a warning of what a warming Pacific could deliver next.