Inside Cyclone Winston (February 20, 2016)

  • Released Friday, March 11th, 2016
  • Updated Friday, August 25th, 2023 at 12:07AM
  • ID: 4437

Turntable visualization of Cyclone Winston with a cutting plane through the storm's eye. As the camera swings around the cyclone, the cutting plane stays perpendicular to the camera revealing a cross-section of the cyclone's internal precipitation rates. Extremely heavy precipitation remains outside of the clipping plane, showing a wall of heavy rain around the eye.
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.

The NASA GPM satellite passed directly over Tropical Cyclone Winston just after it made landfall on the north coast of Viti Levu Island, which is the largest and most populated island in the nation of Fiji. At the time, Winston was one of the most intense tropical cyclones observed in the South Pacific Ocean, and took an unusual track on the way to Fiji, completing a large counter-clockwise loop during the preceding week.

NASA's GPM satellite is designed to measure rainfall using both passive microwave (GMI) and radar (DPR) instruments. GMI measurements are sensitive to the column-integrated rain and ice water, and cover a wide swath, whereas the DPR can observe 3D structures of radar signals reflected by rain and snow in a narrower swath. In this animation, the GMI rainfall estimates are shown at the Earth's surface below the 3D storm structure revealed by DPR.

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.

Print resolution still showing a nadir view of Cyclone Winston's surface precipitation rates over the Fiji Islands via GPM's GPROF algorithm.

Print resolution still showing a nadir view of Cyclone Winston's surface precipitation rates over the Fiji Islands via GPM's GPROF algorithm.

Print resolution still of a bisected Cyclone Winston with Fiji's main island in the foreground. Even with the eye of the storm Northwest of the main island, one can still see a very heavy precipitation event occuring over the central part of the main island. Volumetric precipitation data is provided by GPM's DPR sensor. Surface precipitation is provided by GPM's GPROF algorithm.

Print resolution still of a bisected Cyclone Winston with Fiji's main island in the foreground. Even with the eye of the storm Northwest of the main island, one can still see a very heavy precipitation event occuring over the central part of the main island. Volumetric precipitation data is provided by GPM's DPR sensor. Surface precipitation is provided by GPM's GPROF algorithm.

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

CPC (Climate Prediction Center) Cloud Composite
Data Compilation Climate Prediction Center (CPC) 2/20/2016 9:41:30 Z

Global cloud cover from multiple satellites

See more visualizations using this data set
GPM Volumetric Precipitation data (A.K.A. Ku) (Collected with the DPR sensor)
Observed Data JAXA 2/20/2016 9:41:28 - 10:11:27 Z

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.