Heavy Rainfall Leads to Southern California Mudslides (WMS)

  • Released Tuesday, April 26, 2005
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In January 2005, heavy rains in southern California caused flooding and mudslides. A flow of moisture known as a 'Pineapple Express' because it originates in the Pacific subtropics near Hawaii can cause severe winter storms in California when conditions are right. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) observered heavy rainfall near San Diego during a five-day period in January 2005. This visualization shows accumulation of rainfall—each frame shows the total amount of rain since the start of the measurement period.

This animation shows accumulated rainfall from 2005-01-06 through 2005-01-11. Each frame covers a three-hour period. Each image pixel is 0.25 degrees on a side; the total area covered is 20x20 degrees in longitude and latitude (80x80 pixels).

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Color scale for accumulated rainfall. Values above 20cm are shown as dark red. Values below 5cm are increasingly transparent to allow a background image to show through.

Color scale for accumulated rainfall. Values above 20cm are shown as dark red. Values below 5cm are increasingly transparent to allow a background image to show through.

For More Information

See http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/ca_rains.html

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Tuesday, April 26, 2005.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.

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