What was the first tropical cyclone observed by satellite from space?

Hurricane Esther was the first tropical cyclone observed by satellite from space.

The storm was photographed by TIROS-3, a weather satellite launched by the United States in 1961. Satellite observation gave meteorologists a new way to monitor tropical systems over remote oceans, where ships and aircraft provided only limited information.

Esther formed in the Atlantic during the 1961 hurricane season and affected the western Atlantic and the northeastern United States. The satellite view helped demonstrate that orbiting instruments could identify and track organized cloud systems far from land.

This milestone is distinct from the first weather satellite itself. TIROS-1, launched in 1960, pioneered television imagery of Earth’s cloud cover, while TIROS-3 supplied the notable early satellite observation of a tropical cyclone.