Visualizations by
Lori Perkins
Released on September 1, 2008
NASA's TRMM spacecraft observed this view of Hurricane Gustav on August 31, 2008 as the Gulf Coast braces for the worst. At this time the storm was a category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 100 knots (115 mph) and a pressure reading of 957 millibars. The cloud cover is taken by TRMM's Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) and the GOES spacecraft. The rain structure is taken by TRMM's Tropical Microwave Imager (TMI) and TRMM's Precitation Radar (PR) instruments. TRMM looks underneath of the storm's clouds to reveal the underlying rain structure. Blue represents areas with at least 0.25 inches of rain per hour. Green shows at least 0.5 inches of rain per hour. Yellow is at least 1.0 inches of rain and red is at least 2.0 inches of rain per hour.
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0