GPM Monitors Hurricane Matthew Flooding the Carolinas

  • Released Tuesday, October 11, 2016
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This data visualization resumes where the visualization "GPM Captures Hurricane Matthew Nearing Florida" leaves off. In this animation Hurricane Matthew travels up the east coast from Florida to the Carolinas. On October 8, 2016 Matthew (still a category 2 hurricane) dumps massive amounts of rain throughout the southeast dousing North and South Carolina. GPM then flies over the area revealing precipitation rates on the ground. As we zoom in closer, GPM's DPR sensor reveals a curtain of 3D rain rates within the massive weather system.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core observatory satellite flew over Hurricane Matthew as the category 2 hurricane drenched North and South Carolina with record-breaking rainfall on October 8, 2016 resulting in historical flooding throughout the Carolinas.

The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.

GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

This visualization is the same as above except without colorbars and dates overlayed. (Useful for broadcasters who wish to organize the annotation layout differently.)

Color bar for frozen precipitation rates (ie, snow rates). Shades of cyan represent low amounts of frozen precipitation, whereas shades of purple represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for frozen precipitation rates (ie, snow rates). Shades of cyan represent low amounts of frozen precipitation, whereas shades of purple represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for liquid precipitation rates (ie, rain rates). Shades of green represent low amounts of liquid precipitation, whereas shades of red represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for liquid precipitation rates (ie, rain rates). Shades of green represent low amounts of liquid precipitation, whereas shades of red represent high amounts of precipitation.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.

This page was originally published on Tuesday, October 11, 2016.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 12:08 AM EST.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

  • [GOES: IR4]

    ID: 33
    Sensor: IR4 Dates used: 10/6/2016 - 10/8/2016
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Rain Rates (Surface Precipitation) [GPM: GMI]

    ID: 822
    Sensor: GMI Dates used: 10/08/2016 08:38:32 - 10:11:04Z

    Credit: Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Volumetric Precipitation data (Ku) [GPM: DPR]

    ID: 830
    Type: Observed Data Sensor: DPR Dates used: 10/08/2016 08:38:32 - 10:11:04Z

    Credit: Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.

    See all pages that use this dataset

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