Inside Hurricane Maria in 360°
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- Visualizations by:
- Greg Shirah
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- Produced by:
- Joy Ng
- View full credits
Two days before Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the NASA-Japan Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory satellite captured a 3-D view of the storm. At the time Maria was a Category 1 hurricane. The 3-D view reveals the processes inside the hurricane that would fuel the storm’s intensification to a category 5 within 24 hours.
For the first time in 360-degrees, this data visualization takes you inside the hurricane. The precipitation satellite has an advanced radar that measures both liquid and frozen water. The brightly colored dots show areas of rainfall, where green and yellow show low rates and red and purple show high rates. At the top of the hurricane, where temperatures are colder, blue and purple dots show light and heavy frozen precipitation. The colored areas below the dots show how much rain is falling at the surface.
Created by: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Data Sources:
• NASA/GPM Dual Precipitation Radar (DPR) precipitation rate and drop size distribution data
• NASA/GPM GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) ground precipitation data
• NASA/Bluemarble land imagery
• NOAA/GOES16 cloud data
• Hipparcos/Telescope/Tycho 2 Catalogue
This is a 360° video that can be downloaded and viewed on 360° video platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
Complete transcript available.
Music credit: "The Answer" by Laurent Levesque [SACEM] from Killer Tracks
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission
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Data visualizers
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- Kel Elkins (USRA)
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Writer
- Ellen T. Gray (NASA/HQ)
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Scientists
- Dalia B Kirschbaum (NASA/GSFC)
- George Huffman (NASA/GSFC)
- Scott Braun (NASA/GSFC)
- Stephen J. Munchak (University of Maryland)
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Producers
- Joy Ng (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
- Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Support
- Joycelyn Thomson Jones (NASA/GSFC)
- Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Technical support
- Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Related Pages
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ID: 4685 Visualization
Inside Hurricane Maria in 360°
Read moreTour Hurricane Maria in a whole new way! Late on September 17, 2017 (10:08 p.m. EDT) Category 1 Hurricane Maria was strengthening in the Atlantic Ocean when the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over it. The Dual Frequency Precipitation Radar, measuring in a narrow band over the storm center, shows 3-D estimates of rain, with snow at higher altitudes. The tall "hot towers" characteristic of deepening hurricanes are actually topped by snow! Surface rainfall rates estimated by the GPM Microwave Imager paint the surface over a wider swath. During the tour, you'll see the radar-observed rain intensities displayed three different ways in various parts of the storm. Then, for the first time you'll see estimates of the precipitation particle sizes, which the GPM DPR is uniquely capable of showing, and which provide important insights into storm processes.GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. ||
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