Intense String of Hurricanes Seen From Space

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  • 
    ID: 12723 Produced Video

    NASA Catches Hurricanes Jose and Maria

    Sept. 20th, 2017
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    Music: "Tradition-Innovation," Philippe Lhommet, KOKA Media || The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission shows the rainfall distribution for two major storms churning in the Atlantic and Caribbean basins. The visualization shows Hurricane Jose as it continues to slowly move northward off the US East Coast east of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. At one time, Jose was a powerful Category 4 border line Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds reported at 155 mph by the National Hurricane Center back on the 9th of September as it was approaching the northern Leeward Islands. Jose passed northeast of the Leeward Islands as a Category 4 storm on a northwest track and then began to weaken due to the effects of northerly wind shear. Remaining over warm water allowed Jose to strengthen back into a hurricane on September 15th as wind shear across the storm diminished. At this time, Jose was still only midway between the central Bahamas and Bermuda, having just completed its loop, and moving to the northwest. On the 16th, Jose turned northward as it moved around the western edge of a ridge of high pressure near Bermuda and began to parallel the US East Coast well away from shore. An overpass by the GPM Core Observatory captured an image of Jose overnight at 3:36 UTC 18 September (11:36 pm EST 17 September) as the storm was moving due north at 9 mph well off shore from the coast of North Carolina. The GPM image estimated areas of very heavy rain on the order of 75 mm/hr (~3 inches per hour).The GPM Core Observatory satellite also had an excellent view of Hurricane Maria when it passed almost directly above the hurricane on September 17, 2017 at 1001 PM AST (September 18, 2017 0201 UTC). GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) showed that Maria had well defined bands of precipitation rotating around the eye of the tropical cyclone. GPM's radar (DPR Ku band) found rain falling at a rate of over 6.44 inches (163.7 mm) per hour in one of these extremely powerful storms northeast of Maria's eye. Intense thunderstorms were found towering to above 9.7 miles (15.7 km). This kind of chimney cloud is also called a "hot tower" (as it releases a huge quantity of latent heat by condensation). These tall thunderstorms in the eye wall are often a sign that a tropical cyclone is becoming more powerful. Maria rapidly intensified following this view to a Category 5 storm on September 19th. ||

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  • 
    ID: 30898 Hyperwall Visual

    A Menacing Line of Hurricanes

    Sept. 18th, 2017
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    VIIRS imagery of Katia, Irma, and Jose || Meteorologists struggled to find the right words to describe the situation as a line of three hurricanes—two of them major and all of them threatening land—brewed in the Atlantic basin in September 2017. Forecasters were most concerned about Irma, which was on track to make landfall in densely populated South Florida on September 10 as a large category 4 storm. Meanwhile, category 2 Hurricane Katia was headed for Mexico, where it was expected to make landfall on September 9. And just days after Irma devastated the Leeward Islands, the chain of small Caribbean islands braced for another blow—this time from category 4 Hurricane Jose.The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured the data for a mosaic of Katia, Irma, and Jose as they appeared in the early hours of September 8, 2017. The images were acquired by the VIIRS “day-night band,” which detects light signals in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared, and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight. In this case, the clouds were lit by the nearly full Moon. The image is a composite, showing cloud imagery combined with data on city lights. ||

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  • 
    ID: 12697 Produced Video

    NASA Captures Hurricane Harvey's Rainfall

    Aug. 30th, 2017
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    Music: "Whirlpool," Michael Jan Levine, Killer Tracks || The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory captured these images of Hurricane Harvey at 11:45 UTC and 21:25 UTC on the 27th of August nearly two days after the storm made landfall as it was meandering slowly southeast at just 2 mph (~4 kph) near Victoria, Texas west of Houston. The image shows rain rates derived from GPM's GMI microwave imager (outer swath) and dual-frequency precipitation radar or DPR (inner swath) overlaid on enhanced visible/infrared data from the GOES-East satellite. Harvey's cyclonic circulation is still quite evident in the visible/infrared clouds, but GPM shows that the rainfall pattern is highly asymmetric with the bulk of the rain located north and east of the center. A broad area of moderate rain can be seen stretching from near Galveston Bay to north of Houston and back well to the west. Within this are embedded areas of heavy rain (red areas); the peak estimated rain rate from GPM at the time of this overpass was 96 mm/hr (~3.77 inches per hour). With Harvey's circulation still reaching out over the Gulf, the storm is able to draw in a continuous supply of warm moist air to sustain the large amount of rain it is producing. ||

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  • 
    ID: 12195 Produced Video

    Flying Over Hurricanes For New NASA Mission

    July 25th, 2017
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    NASA scientists are investigating key questions about hurricanes in a new mission from the skies. This August, the East Pacific Origins and Characteristics of Hurricanes, or EPOCH, mission will fly over East Pacific storms to better understand how they form and intensify. EPOCH will conduct up to six 24-hour science flights using the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft. Three of the flights are being supported through a partnership with the NOAA UAS Program. Data will be collected using three instruments (EXRAD, HAMSR, and AVAPS) aboard the aircraft that will map out the 3-D patterns of temperature, pressure, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed - key factors that influence hurricane behavior. NASA scientists use a combination of ground, modeled, and satellite data to re-create multi-dimensional pictures of hurricanes and other major storms in order to study complex atmospheric interactions. ||

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  • 
    ID: 12628 Produced Video

    Building a Hurricane Season in the Atlantic Ocean

    July 25th, 2017
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    Music: Eternal Sunset by Alexandre Prodhomme [SACEM]Complete transcript available. || For decades, NASA researchers have helped refine our understanding of hurricanes and tropical storms. To better understand the Atlantic hurricane season, they use the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS-5) model run by supercomputers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt Maryland. In the model, scientists at NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) simulated the conditions in the ocean and atmosphere that give rise to tropical storms and hurricanes. From these simulations, he can better isolate and understand which factors play a role in driving a busy or a slow Atlantic hurricane season. The full study is available here. ||

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  • 
    ID: 12635 Produced Video

    A New Multi-dimensional View of a Hurricane

    July 25th, 2017
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    Music: "Buoys," Donn Wilkerson, Killer Tracks; "Late Night Drive," Donn Wilkerson, Killer Tracks.Complete transcript available. || NASA researchers now can use a combination of satellite observations to re-create multi-dimensional pictures of hurricanes and other major storms in order to study complex atmospheric interactions. In this video, they applied those techniques to Hurricane Matthew. When it occurred in the fall of 2016, Matthew was the first Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in almost ten years. Its torrential rains and winds caused significant damage and loss of life as it coursed through the Caribbean and up along the southern U.S. coast. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4585 Visualization

    Hurricane Jose lingers in the Atlantic as Hurricane Maria approaches Puerto Rico

    Sept. 19th, 2017
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    GPM passed over both Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Jose on September 18th, 2017. As the camera moves in on the Maria, DPR's volumetric view of the storm is revealed. A slicing plane moves across the volume to display precipitation rates throughout the storm. Shades of green to red represent liquid precipitation extending down to the ground. || The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission shows the rainfall distribution for two major storms churning in the Atlantic and Caribbean basins. The visualization shows Hurricane Jose as it continues to slowly move northward off the US East Coast east of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. At one time, Jose was a powerful category 4 border line category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds reported at 155 mph by the National Hurricane Center back on the 9th of September as it was approaching the northern Leeward Islands. Jose passed northeast of the Leeward Islands as a category 4 storm on a northwest track and then began to weaken due to the effects of northerly wind shear. Remaining over warm water allowed Jose to strengthen back into a hurricane on September 15th as wind shear across the storm diminished. At this time, Jose was still only midway between the central Bahamas and Bermuda, having just completed its loop, and moving to the northwest. On the 16th, Jose turned northward as it moved around the western edge of a ridge of high pressure near Bermuda and began to parallel the US East Coast well away from shore. An overpass by the GPM Core Observatory captured an image of Jose overnight at 3:36 UTC 18 September (11:36 pm EST 17 September) as the storm was moving due north at 9 mph well off shore from the coast of North Carolina. The GPM image estimated areas of very heavy rain on the order of 75 mm/hr (~3 inches per hour). The GPM Core Observatory satellite also had an excellent view of Hurricane Maria when it passed almost directly above the hurricane on September 17, 2017 at 1001 PM AST (September 18, 2017 0201 UTC). GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) showed that Maria had well defined bands of precipitation rotating around the eye of the tropical cyclone. GPM's radar (DPR Ku band) found rain falling at a rate of over 6.44 inches (163.7 mm) per hour in one of these extremely powerful storms northeast of Maria's eye. Intense thunderstorms were found towering to above 9.7 miles (15.7 km). This kind of chimney cloud is also called a "hot tower" (as it releases a huge quantity of latent heat by condensation). These tall thunderstorms in the eye wall are often a sign that a tropical cyclone is becoming more powerful. Maria rapidly intensified following this view to a Category 5 storm on September 19th. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4584 Visualization

    GPM Examines Hurricane Irma

    Sept. 10th, 2017
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    GPM scans Hurricane Irma on September 5th and again on September 7th as the storm approaches Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti as a category 5 hurricane. This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || The GPM core observatory satellite had an exceptional view of hurricane Irma's eye when it flew above it on September 5, 2017 at 12:52 PM AST (1652 UTC). This visualization shows a rainfall analysis that was derived from GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) data. Irma was approaching the Leeward Islands with maximum sustained winds of about 178 mph (155 kts). This made Irma a dangerous category five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Intense rainfall is shown within Irma's nearly circular eye. This 3-D cross-section through Irma's eye was constructed using GPM's radar (DPR Ku band) data. GPM's radar revealed that the heavy precipitation rotating around the eye was reaching altitudes greater than 7.75 miles (12.5 km). The tallest thunderstorms were found by GPM's radar in a feeder band that was located to the southwest of Irma's eye. These extreme storms were reaching heights of over 10.0 miles (16.2 km). Intense downpours in the eye wall were found to be returning radar reflectivity values of over 80dBZ to the GPM satellite.Irma rapidly intensified on September 4-5 as it moved over very warm waters and into an environment will weak vertical wind shear (the change of winds with height). Irma maintained maximum winds of 185 mph for a day and a half, making it one of the longest-lived storms at this intensity. That intensity made it the strongest observed storm over the Atlantic Ocean (excluding the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean). Irma’s rapid intensification was very similar to Hurricane Harvey's in the Gulf about 10 days earlier. ||

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  • 
    ID: 4458 Visualization

    Harvey Floods Texas and Threatens Louisiana (Final Tropical Storm Update)

    Aug. 31st, 2017
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    GPM caught Tropical Storm Harvey twice on August 30th, 2017. This time the storm made landfall in Louisiana and moved up east of the Texas/Louisiana border pounding already drenched eastern Texas and western Louisiana with more rain. || The Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) Core Observatory captured these images of Hurricane Harvey August 27th through the 30th, 2017.At 11:45 UTC and 21:25 UTC on the 27th of August nearly two days after the storm made landfall Harvey was meandering slowly southeast at just 2 mph (~4 kph) near Victoria, Texas west of Houston. The images at this stage show rain rates derived from GPM's GMI microwave imager (outer swath) and dual-frequency precipitation radar or DPR (inner swath) overlaid on enhanced infrared data from the GOES-East satellite as well as the IMERG precipitation product. Harvey's cyclonic circulation is still quite evident in the infrared clouds, but GPM shows that the rainfall pattern is highly asymmetric with the bulk of the rain located north or east of the center. A broad area of moderate rain can be seen stretching from near Galveston Bay to north of Houston and back well to the west. Within this are embedded areas of heavy rain (red areas); the peak estimated rain rate from GPM during these overpasses was 96 mm/hr (~3.77 inches per hour). With Harvey's circulation still reaching out over the Gulf, the storm is able to draw in a continuous supply of warm moist air to sustain the large amount of rain it is producing.At 10:45 UTC and 20:25 UTC on August 28th Harvey's outer bands can be seen drenching the Louisana coastline, despite the fact that the main part of the storm still lingered over Houston, Texas.Finally, on August 30th at 10:35 UTC Harvey can be seen shortly after making landfall a second time. Approximately 10 hours later Harvey can still be seen in nearly the same location continuing to dump heavy amounts of rain across the Texas/Louisiana border. ||

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  • 
    ID: 11392 Produced Video

    GPM Core Spacecraft Beauty Passes

    Oct. 31st, 2013
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    A variety of animated beauty passes of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core spacecraft. || Various beauty passes of the GPM Core spacecraft. || The GPM Core satellite cruises over a hurricane. ||

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  • 
    ID: 3912 Visualization

    Global Sea Surface Currents and Temperature

    March 16th, 2012
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    This visualization shows sea surface current flows. The flows are colored by corresponding sea surface temperature data. This visualization is rendered for display on very high resolution devices like hyperwalls or for print media.This visualization was produced using model output from the joint MIT/JPL project entitled Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II (ECCO2). ECCO2 uses the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm) to synthesize satellite and in-situ data of the global ocean and sea-ice at resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow current systems, which transport heat and carbon in the oceans. The ECCO2 model simulates ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization. ||

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• Alternate versions

  • 
    ID: 13216 Produced Video

    NASA Has Eyes On The Atlantic Hurricane Season

    June 3rd, 2019
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    NASA has a unique and important view of hurricanes around the planet. Satellites and aircraft watch as storms form, travel across the ocean and sometimes, make landfall. After the hurricanes have passed, the satellites and aircraft see the aftermath of hurricanes, from downed forests to mass power loss. || Complete transcript available.Music credits: “Northern Breeze” by Denis Levaillant [SACEM], “Stunning Horizon” by Maxime Lebidois [SACEM], Ronan Maillard [SACEM], “Magnetic Force” by JC Lemay [SACEM] from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.This video can be freely shared and downloaded. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, some individual imagery provided by pond5.com is obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on stock footage may be found here. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html.Notes on footage:• 0:03 - 0:17 provided by Pond5• 1:38 - 1.43 provided by Pond5• 1:49 - 1:52 provided by Pond5• 2:21 - 1:27 provided by Pond5 ||

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