Typhoons

Super typhoon Rammasun struck the southern coast of China on Friday July 18th as a very powerful super typhoon with sustained winds estimated at 135 knots (~155 mph or equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane on the US Saffir-Simpson scale), making it the strongest typhoon to hit the area in several decades. Rammasun made landfall at 3:30 pm (local time) on Hainan Island where the southern half of the intense eye wall raked across the northeast tip of that island. The center then quickly cut across the Qiongzhou Strait separating Hainan from the Leizhou Peninsula to the north. The right half of

People in the southern Philippines are used to heavy rainfall this time of the year but rainfall totals have recently been exceptionally high. A tropical low northeast of Mindanao has been an almost permanent feature on weather maps for the past week. It has caused nearly continuous rain in the area of northeastern Mindanao triggering floods and landslides that have caused the reported deaths of 34 people. The TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), produced at Goddard Space Flight Center, combines the rainfall estimates generated by TRMM and other satellites (3B42) . The analysis

Super typhoon Haiyan, known locally in the Philippines as Yulonda, will go down as a historic storm, making landfall in the central Philippines as perhaps the most powerful tropical cyclone to ever make landfall with sustained winds estimated at 195 mph (~315 kph). So far, over 2300 people are confirmed to have been killed by the storm, and the number is likely to climb higher with many still missing and not all areas unaccounted for. Katrina, which devasted the US Gulf coast in 2005, was responsible for 1833 fatalities The most deadly flooding from Super Typhoon Haiyan was caused by the storm

On November 1, 2013 at 1320 UTC the TRMM satellite had the second look at typhoon KROSA. KROSA weakened slightly when it passed over the northern Philippines but had started to intensify with this second pass over the South China Sea. The image on the left shows rainfall data collected by TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments overlaid on an enhanced infrared image. TRMM PR data revealed that rain was falling at a rate of over 116mm/hr (4.5 inches) in KROSA's eye wall. Radar reflectivity values greater than 50dBZ were found in the same area. The 3-D perspective

Typhoon Francisco was headed toward the islands of southern Japan when the TRMM satellite had a good view on October 22, 2013 at 0933 UTC. Francisco was weakening and had estimated winds of less than 75kts (~86 mph) with this TRMM pass. An analysis derived from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments is shown overlaid on an enhanced infrared image from TRMM's Visible and InfraRed Scanner (VIRS). This analysis showed that the most intense rain was falling at a rate of over 75mm/hr (~3 inches) in a location well to the southwest of Francisco's center of circulation

The most powerful typhoon of 2013 hit southern China with reported winds of 95.6 kts (~110 mph) killing at least 20 people. The TRMM satellite had a fairly good view on September 22, 2013 at 0923 UTC as typhoon USAGI's eye was very near the coast of southern China. TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments showed that in addition to the extreme winds reported there were areas just south of USAGI's eye where rain was falling at a rate of over 169mm/hr (~6.7 inches). TRMM sliced through USAGI and found that heights of storms within USAGI were reaching only about 12km