Eye-witness: Tiny vs. huge eye in Super Typhoon Hagibis

In early October, Super Typhoon Hagibis rapidly strengthened into a Category 5 equivalent storm in less than a day, the quickest in 20 years. While this in itself is impressive, even more so is the wide range of the hurricane's eye diameters.

The initial eye after becoming a Super Typhoon was about 5 miles wide, but it suddenly expanded (called an "eyewall replacement cycle") to 25 miles, according to Capital Weather Gang. By overlaying satellite photos from the CIRA Slider, I was able to illustrate how different the storm looked on Oct. 9, compared to Oct. 7 (click to enlarge):

Comparison of Super Typhoon Hagibis' size and eye width between Oct. 7 and Oct. 9, 2019.

There was minor blurring or removal of extraneous clouds for clarity, but this is the same map, showing the Mariana Islands near the bottom.

Typhoon Hagibis (weakened to a Category 2) went on to kill dozens of people in Japan with flooding and a strong tornado, and the photos of the damage are intense:

Typhoon Hagibis batters Japan