Today typhoon Rammasun is pounding the Philippines with strong winds and heavy rainfall. Rammasun was labeled a tropical storm on July 12, 2014 when it formed west of Guam. Rammasun strengthened and was upgraded to a typhoon on July 14, 2014. Typhoon Rammasun became still more powerful and had winds estimated at 100kts (about 115 mph) today making it a category three tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.

The images above show typhoon Rammasun as the TRMM satellite flew over on July 14, 2014 at 1819 UTC and again on July 15, 2014 at 0410 UTC. These images show that Rammasun's eye size decreased as the typhoon spun faster. Wind speeds increased from 80kts (about 92 mph) to about 100 kts (about 115 mph) between the two TRMM views. Precipitation from TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments are shown overlaid on enhanced MTSAT Visible/Infrared images captured at close to the same time. Typhoon Rammasun is shown passing just to the north of the island of Samar in the Philippines but Rammasun is a large typhoon and is shown affecting much of the Philippines. Rain was measured by TRMM PR falling at a rate of over 84 mm (about 3.3 inches) per hour near Rammasun's eye on July 14, 2014. Rain was measured falling at a rate of almost 102 mm (about 4 inches) per hour over the central Philippines on July 15, 2014.

TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data were used in the 3-D view of typhoon Rammasun shown above. On July 14, 2014 very powerful thunderstorms near the center of the typhoon were found by TRMM PR to be reaching heights of almost 17km (about 1.5 miles). Radar reflectivity values of up to 52.6 dBZ were returned to the satellite from intense rainfall in the same area.

Click here to see a Low Resolution 640x360 simulated 3-D (Quicktime) July 14, 2014 flyby.

Click here to see a Low Resolution 640x360 simulated 3-D (MPEG) July 14, 2014 flyby.