Super-Typhoon Pongsona Visualized from AIRS Instrument Suite Data

The 3D model represents cloud tops estimated from an AIRS window channel. (This channel essentially measures the temperature of the nearest impenetrable surface seen from the satellite, either clouds or ocean-land. Using an estimate of the vertical temperature distribution in the atmosphere, the temperature field is then converted to a cloud top height field.)

The color overlay represents the brightness temperature observed in one of the HSB channels. The most important color is blue, which indicates intense convection and likely rain cells. Green generally indicates thick clouds, while red indicates thin low clouds. (Microwave, unlike infrared, penetrates clouds and looks into them or even through them.)

The deepest red from HSB has been removed from the overlay, so that grey indicates clouds detected by AIRS that are more or less transparent to HSB.

Super-Typhoon Pongsona struck the U.S. Island of Guam on December 8, 2002.

Video slate image reads "Packing gusts of nearly 300 kilometers per hour (184 miles per hour) and sustained winds of 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour), Super-Typhoon Pongsona struck the U.S. Island of Guam on December 8, 2002."