Typhoon Bolaven has taken a week to build to typhoon strength as it slowly crossed the Philippine Sea between November 13 and November 18, 2005. The storm had been a Category 1 typhoon for just over 24 hours when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite captured this image. At the time, Bolaven had winds of 120 kilometres per hour with gusts to 150 km/hour, only just qualifying to be called a typhoon. The storm strengthen slightly before coming ashore over the Philippines on November 19.
As a weak Category 1 storm, Bolaven lacks a distinct eye, but it does have the circular shape of a tropical cyclone. The outer bands of the storm were already moving over Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, when the satellite took this image. The image has a maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.