Tropical Cyclone Ita Drenches Australia

Tropical Cyclone Ita Drenches Australia

After coming ashore this past Friday tropical cyclone ITA dropped heavy rainfall over the weekend that caused flooding in many areas of northeastern Australia's state of Queensland. IDA has now moved back into the Coral Sea. The analysis above shows a TRMM-based near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) made at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This analysis used TMPA precipitation data from April 1-14, 2014 during the period when ITA formed in the Coral Sea and moved along northeastern Australia's coast. IDA's locations at 0600 UTC are shown overlaid in white.

Tropical Cyclone Ita Drenches Australia

The images above and below were made using data collected by the TRMM satellite on April 14, 2014 at 0416 UTC after ITA moved back into the Coral Sea. TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) instrument found that weakening tropical cyclone ITA was still dropping rainfall at a maximum rate of over 161 mm/hr (about 6.3 inches) over the Coral Sea. Ida's wind speeds had dropped to an estimated 45kts (about 52 mph) at that time and are expected to continue dropping as the tropical cyclone moves away from Australia's eastern coast. The 3-D image on the right, using TRMM PR data, shows that some storms within ITA were still reaching heights of over 13km (about 8 miles).

Tropical Cyclone Ita Drenches Australia