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Cyclone Imelda is currently in the southern Indian Ocean, and reached hurricane strength yesterday. The above image clearly shows the eye of the storm opening up, but an image of the storm taken today shows it filled in with heavy cloud cover. The storm has also elongated itself from east to west. The two images were captured by NASA's Aqua satellite, and when viewed together, it looks like the storm is winking. It's adorable.   Cyclone Imelda is currently in the southern Indian Ocean, and reached hurricane strength yesterday. The above image clearly shows the eye of the storm opening up, but an image of the storm taken today shows it filled in with heavy cloud cover. The storm has also elongated itself from east to west. The two images were captured by NASA's Aqua satellite, and when viewed together, it looks like the storm is winking.

Hurricane Sandy ripped through a portion of the United States yesterday, leaving a trail flooding and destruction behind. Though the hurricane was only a category one -- something everyone in the southeast portion of the States scoffs at while hanging out on their porches during the height of a storm -- various areas the hurricane hit, such as New York and New Jersey, aren't built to withstand such weather. If you were paying attention to social media, some Hurricane Sandy images probably slipped into your feed, regardless of where you're from. We've collected some striking pictures the storm left in its wake, which you can check out below.

Not to show favoritism toward the force of nature that is the hurricane, The Weather Channel has decided that it will now begin naming winter storms as well. Though it is a little weird that we, the human race, find it normal that we give storms human names, simply looking at the inaugural list of available names makes us feel like someone at The Weather Channel plays an MMO or two. Though you might feel there is a solid theme of Greek and Roman naming conventions, it's not exactly consistent, as "Q" is literally named after the New York City subway line. If you think that's a weird namesake, we've gone ahead and plowed through some past hurricane names that we feel were a bit odd. As it turns out, the human race occasionally tends to name their weather systems like celebrities name their babies.

Florida gets hit by a lot of hurricanes. How many hurricanes, you ask? I don't actually know, but enough that the University of Miami made them the school's namesake. Knowing that, it makes perfect sense that the university would want the ability to summon them at will. I mean it's only fair, right? That's why scientists at the new university's Marine Technology & Life Sciences Seawater Complex are building a machine that will let them simulate a hurricane in a controlled lab environment. Okay, so that's not the actually the reason. They are working on it, though.

You might think that whether or not local business are open might be a decent rule of thumb for making a quick estimation of hurricane damage in a given town. Well, apparently it is, because FEMA uses Waffle House restaurants as one of several ways they get a general feel for how bad damage is. The Waffle House Index has three main points on it. When Waffle Houses are up and running full service, usually the damage isn't bad at all. If they're serving a limited menu, it means that there's some damage, but it's not horrible. If they're closed, it means you've got a disaster on your hands.

Waffle Houses are generally found from the mid-Atlantic to Florida, and along the gulf coast. As such, they are right in striking range for hurricanes but have developed some excellent disaster protocols that generally lets them stay open if at all possible. When Katrina hit, Waffle Houses were some of the first places to reopen and serve the legions of hungry citizens. Since then, they've embraced their reputation of being invincible.