Joaquin

  • Released Wednesday, September 30, 2015
  • Updated Friday, November 18, 2016 at 3:25PM
  • ID: 4367

Animation of Tropical Storm Joaquin on September 29, 2015 right before it intensified into a hurricane. The camera moves in on the storm, and the visualization concludes with a 360 degree view around the storm.
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Joaquin became a tropical storm on the evening (EDT) of Monday, September 28th midway between the Bahamas and Bermuda and has now formed into a hurricane, the 3rd of the season--the difference is Joaquin could impact the US East Coast.

GPM captured Joaquin Tuesday, September 29th at 21:39 UTC (5:39 pm EDT) as the hurricane moved slowly towards the west-southwest about 400 miles east of the Bahamas. At the time, Joaquin had been battling northerly wind shear, which was impeding the storm's ability to strengthen. However, compared to earlier in the day, the system was beginning to gain the upper hand as the shear began to relax its grip. At the time of this data visualization, Joaquin's low-level center of circulation was located further within the cloud shield, and the rain area was beginning to wrap farther around the center on the eastern side of the storm while showing signs of increased banding and curvature, a sure sign that Joaquin's circulation was intensifying. GPM shows a large area of very intense rain with rain rates ranging from around 50 to 132 mm/hr (~2 to 5 inches, shown in shades of red) just to the right of the center. This is a strong indication that large amounts of heat are being released into the storm's center, fueling its circulation and providing the means for its intensification. Associated with the area of intense rain is an area of tall convective towers, known as a convective burst, with tops reaching up to 16.3 km. These towers when located near the storm's core are a strong indication that the storm is poised to strengthen as they too reveal the release of heat into the storm.

At the time this data was taken, the National Hurricane Center reported that Joaquin's maximum sustained winds had increased to 65 mph from 40 mph earlier in the day, making Joaquin a strong tropical storm but poised to become a hurricane, which did occur on September 30th at 8:00 am EDT.

Animation of Tropical Storm Joaquin on September 29, 2015 right before it intensified into a hurricane. (This version does not include the 360 degree view of the storm at the end of the visualization)

Print resolution still of GPM/GMI ground precipitation measurements. Colors in green represent low precipitation amounts. Colors in red are much higher amounts.

Print resolution still of GPM/GMI ground precipitation measurements. Colors in green represent low precipitation amounts. Colors in red are much higher amounts.

Print resolution still of Tropical Storm Joaquin on September 29, 2015.

Print resolution still of Tropical Storm Joaquin on September 29, 2015.

Print resolution still of Tropical Storm Joaquin showing a sideview of the internal precipitation structure. The areas in blue are frozen precipitation. Areas in green and red are liquid precipitation.

Print resolution still of Tropical Storm Joaquin showing a sideview of the internal precipitation structure. The areas in blue are frozen precipitation. Areas in green and red are liquid precipitation.

Color bar for frozen precipitation rates (ie, snow rates). Shades of cyan represent low amounts of frozen precipitation, whereas shades of purple represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for frozen precipitation rates (ie, snow rates). Shades of cyan represent low amounts of frozen precipitation, whereas shades of purple represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for liquid precipitation rates (ie, rain rates). Shades of green represent low amounts of liquid precipitation, whereas shades of red represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for liquid precipitation rates (ie, rain rates). Shades of green represent low amounts of liquid precipitation, whereas shades of red represent high amounts of precipitation.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

GPM Volumetric Precipitation data (A.K.A. Ku) (Collected with the DPR sensor)
Observed DataJAXA9/29/2015 21:36Z

Credit: Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.

See more visualizations using this data set
GPM Rain Rates (A.K.A. Surface Precipitation) (Collected with the GMI sensor)

Credit: Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.

See more visualizations using this data set

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

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