Global Precipitation Measurement

This visualization shows the hurricanes and tropical storms of 2021 as seen by NASA’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) - a data product combining precipitation observations from infrared and microwave satellite sensors united by the GPM Core Observatory. IMERG provides near real-time half-hourly precipitation estimates at ~10km resolution for the entire globe, helping researchers better understand Earth’s water cycle and extreme weather events, with applications for disaster management, tracking disease, resource management, energy production and food security. IMERG rain rates (in mm/hr) are laid under infrared cloud data from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Cloud Composite dataset together with storm tracks from the NOAA National Hurricane Center (NHC) Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting (ATCF) model. Sea surface temperatures (SST) are also shown over the oceans, derived from the NASA Multi-sensor Ultra-high Resolution (MUR) dataset, which combines data from multiple geostationary and orbiting satellites. Sea surface temperatures play an important role in hurricane formation and development, with warmer temperatures linked to more intense storms. This data visualization was done for the United Nations Climate Change Conference - Conference of the Parties (COP) 26. The 2021 hurricane season officially ends November 30th. This data visualization will be periodically updated until that date.

Although it only reached hurricane status for a brief period, Hurricane Nicholas made an impact on the northern Gulf Coast by bringing heavy rains to an area still recovering from the devastating effects of powerful Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana just over 2 weeks earlier. Nicholas formed after a tropical wave passed over the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Bay of Campeche, providing a focus for shower and thunderstorm development. On the morning of Sunday September 12th, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) found that this area of storms had developed a closed circulation with sustained winds of 40 mph and so designated it as Tropical Storm Nicholas. Nicholas was affected by several competing factors: the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, nearby land, dry air, and windshear. The result was that Nicholas struggled to organize and form a coherent center due to the effects of southwesterly wind shear as it tracked northward towards the Texas coast. In fact, late that same evening on the 12th, the center actually re-formed well to the north-northeast of the previous center, causing the track to jump forward. After reforming its center, Nicholas finally started to tap into the warm waters of the Gulf and began to strengthen on the morning of 13th as it approached the Texas-Mexico border. However, Nicholas continued to be affected by windshear throughout the day as the storm continued northward just off the Texas coast; the net result was slow strengthening until finally at 10 pm CDT on the evening of the 13th, just before making landfall, NHC reported that Nicholas had become a minimal Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 75 mph. Nicholas made landfall shortly thereafter at 12:30 am CDT on the 14th on the Matagorda Peninsula near Sargent Beach, TX. Several hours later at 11:11 UTC (6:11 am CDT), when the center was located just southwest of Houston, TX, the NASA / JAXA GPM Core Observatory satellite flew over Nicholas. This animation shows rainfall estimates from NASA's IMERG multi-satellite precipitation product and NOAA GOES-E satellite cloud data in association with the passage of Nicholas prior to the time of the GPM overpass followed by a detailed look into the 3D structure and intensity of precipitation within Nicholas using data from the GPM overpass. IMERG shows heavy rain (red areas) remaining mostly out over the Gulf on the eastern side of Nicholas as the storm is moving northward toward the Texas coast. As Nicholas nears the coast, heavy to moderate rain (red and orange areas, respectively) begins to push inland over southeast Texas and southern Louisiana. At the time of the overpass, rainfall rates derived from the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) show heavy rains (in red) extending from southeast Texas eastward across most of southern Louisiana. These rain areas are all located northeast of the center. GPM also shows an intense rainband (shown in magenta and red) extending southward from the coast for several hundred km well east of the center. GPM shows that there is almost no rain west of the center. This highly asymmetric structure is a result of Nicholas not being able to fully develop before making landfall coupled with the fact that the eastern side of Nicholas’ counterclockwise circulation was located over the warm waters of the Gulf while the western side was drawing down dry air over land. GPM’s DPR also shows that the highest reaching precipitation echoes (i.e., the tallest storms, shown in blue shading) are collocated with the most intense rain areas within the prominent rainband east of the center out over the Gulf. After landfall, Nicholas quickly weakened and slowed to a crawl with the remnant low becoming almost stationary over southwestern Louisiana for the next few days. Nicholas has resulted in 4 to 8 inches of rain with locally higher amounts across several areas of the northern Gulf Coast. The storm has also left several hundred thousand people without power from the Houston area and into Louisiana. Learn more about how NASA monitors hurricanes. GPM data is archived at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Hurricane Ida struck southeast Louisiana as a powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021- the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in 2005. Ida brought destructive storm surge, high winds, and heavy rainfall to the region, and left over 1 million homes and businesses without power, including the entire city of New Orleans. The NASA / JAXA GPM Core Observatory satellite flew over the eye of Ida shortly before landfall at 10:13 a.m. CDT (1513 UTC), capturing data on the structure and intensity of precipitation within the storm. This animation shows NASA's IMERG multi-satellite precipitation estimates and NOAA GOES-E satellite cloud data, followed by 3D data from the GPM Core satellite. NASA processed these observations in near real-time and made them available to a wide range of users including weather agencies and researchers. After Ida passed over Cuba as a Category 1 storm, it intensified rapidly to reach Category 4 strength near its Louisiana landfall. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Ida's central pressure reached a minimum of 929 hPa with a 15 nautical mile (17 statute mile) wide eye. At the time, Ida had its lifetime-maximum wind speed of 130 kt (150 mph) in the eyewall shortly before 10 a.m. CDT on Aug. 29. The 3D Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) data collected by the GPM Core satellite shows a healthy hurricane inner core in Ida. The small 17-mile-diameter eyewall is surrounded by a nearly complete outer ring of precipitation approximately 85 miles in diameter. Beyond this central structure, an arc of precipitation exists another 40 miles further from the eye to the southeast. The eye hosts many clouds extending well above 6 miles (10 km), which indicates that Ida was still actively growing at the time of this overpass. NASA continues to monitor Ida as it moves north over the southeastern U.S., providing Earth-observing satellite data, maps and analysis to stakeholders to aid response and recovery efforts. Get the latest updates on Hurricane Ida from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Learn more about how NASA monitors hurricanes. GPM data is archived at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Hurricane Ida struck southeast Louisiana as a powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021- the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in 2005. Ida brought destructive storm surge, high winds, and heavy rainfall to the region, and left over 1 million homes and businesses without power, including the entire city of New Orleans. The NASA / JAXA GPM Core Observatory satellite flew over the eye of Ida shortly before landfall at 10:13 a.m. CDT (1513 UTC), capturing data on the structure and intensity of precipitation within the storm. This animation shows NASA's IMERG multi-satellite precipitation estimates and NOAA GOES-E satellite cloud data, followed by 3D data from the GPM Core satellite. NASA processed these observations in near real-time and made them available to a wide range of users including weather agencies and researchers. After Ida passed over Cuba as a Category 1 storm, it intensified rapidly to reach Category 4 strength near its Louisiana landfall. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Ida's central pressure reached a minimum of 929 hPa with a 15 nautical mile (17 statute mile) wide eye. At the time, Ida had its lifetime-maximum wind speed of 130 kt (150 mph) in the eyewall shortly before 10 a.m. CDT on Aug. 29. The 3D Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) data collected by the GPM Core satellite shows a healthy hurricane inner core in Ida. The small 17-mile-diameter eyewall is surrounded by a nearly complete outer ring of precipitation approximately 85 miles in diameter. Beyond this central structure, an arc of precipitation exists another 40 miles further from the eye to the southeast. The eye hosts many clouds extending well above 6 miles (10 km), which indicates that Ida was still actively growing at the time of this overpass. NASA continues to monitor Ida as it moves north over the southeastern U.S., providing Earth-observing satellite data, maps and analysis to stakeholders to aid response and recovery efforts. Get the latest updates on Hurricane Ida from the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Learn more about how NASA monitors hurricanes. GPM data is archived at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Tropical Storm Fred, the 6th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, began as a westward moving disturbance in the central Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles. The system passed through the southern Leeward Islands during the early morning hours of August 10 but still lacked a well-defined center of circulation. Despite significant thunderstorm activity within the system, it wasn’t until late that evening, when the system was passing just south of Puerto Rico, that the National Hurricane Center (NHC) identified a well-defined circulation and upgraded the system to Tropical Storm Fred. Despite the warm waters in the Caribbean, Fred’s nearly constant interaction with land and wind shear over the next few days limited any development. After Fred’s initial landfall as a tropical storm along the south coast of the Dominican Republic on the afternoon of August 11th, the storm tracked directly across the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola and weakened to a tropical depression. The center re-emerged over water on the 12th, but a combination of westerly and southwesterly wind shear and a track close to the north coast of Cuba kept Fred from redeveloping. Then, after encountering more shear while moving across western Cuba on the 13th, Fred further weakened before finally emerging into the southeast Gulf of Mexico as an open wave on the 14th. It takes time for a disorganized tropical system to re-strengthen, and the 14th saw increasing thunderstorm activity and slow re-organization. However, by the morning of August 15th, NHC found that the system had once again become a tropical storm. Now located in the east-central Gulf approximately due west of Fort Myers, Florida, Fred was in the process of recurving to the north due to an upper-level trough of low pressure to the northwest and a ridge of high pressure to the south and east. Fred slowly intensified on August 15 as it moved northeastward through the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the direction of the Florida panhandle with maximum sustained winds increasing to 50 mph by late in the evening. By 7:30 am CDT on the morning of the 16th, NHC reported that Fred’s maximum sustained winds had increased to 60 mph, making it a strong tropical storm. Fred was now just 80 miles south of Apalachicola, Florida and moving north. Several hours later at 18:41 UTC (1:41 pm CDT), just before the storm center made landfall, the NASA / JAXA GPM Core Observatory satellite flew over Fred, capturing 3D data on the structure and intensity of precipitation within the storm. The above animation shows a detailed look into Fred from GPM. Rainfall rates derived from the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) show heavy rainbands (in red and orange) wrapping up around the eastern, northern and western sides of the storm. This pattern, coupled with the intense rain rates (shown in magenta) and tall towers (shown in the blue shading) just west of the center, suggests that Fred was poised for further strengthening. Fred made landfall shortly after the time of the GPM overpass at 19:15 UTC (2:15 pm CDT) near Cape San Blas, Florida with sustained winds of 65 mph. Precipitation data derived from the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) show half-hourly rainfall estimates for the surrounding region leading up to the GPM overpass. After making landfall, Fred tracked northward across the Florida panhandle and into far southeastern Alabama. At this time, the GPM Core Observatory overflew Fred once again. This next animation shows Fred later that evening at 04:41 UTC 17 August (11:41 pm CDT 16 August) preceded again by IMERG rainfall estimates. Once over land, tropical storms and hurricanes usually weaken steadily and GPM shows that Fred’s circulation has begun to diminish with the bulk of the rain now occurring on the eastern side of the center, which is located over far southeastern Alabama near the Georgia border. Banding is still evident, and Fred was still a tropical storm, but its sustained winds were now reported at 40 mph by NHC. After this, Fred continued to track generally northward across northern Georgia and up along the western side of the Appalachians, bringing plenty of tropical moisture with it. Fred has brought widespread amounts of generally 2 to 4 inches of rain along its path with locally higher amounts upwards of 8 inches. This has led to flooding in parts of the Appalachians, especially in western North Carolina where multiple roads and bridges were reported to be washed out. Fred is also being blamed for several tornadoes across the Southeast and one indirect fatality in Florida. GPM data is archived at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite flew over Tropical Storm Nepartak at 9:30Z on July 27, 2021 while the Olympics were being held in nearby Tokyo. GPM observed the storm’s rainfall with its two unique science instruments: the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR). Although the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics did receive some inclement weather from the outer bands, the majority of the storm stayed out to sea providing strong waves for the inaugural Olympic surfing competitions. GPM data is archived at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/

GPM captured Dorian at 10:41 UTC (6:41 am EDT) on the 4th of September when the storm was moving north-northwest parallel to the coast of Florida about 90 miles due east of Daytona Beach. Three days earlier, Dorian had stuck the northern Bahamas as one of the most powerful Category 5 hurricanes on record in the Atlantic with sustained winds of 185 mph. Weakening steering currents allowed the powerful storm to ravage the northern Bahamas for 2 full days. During this time, Dorian began to weaken due to its interactions with the islands as well as the upwelling of cooler ocean waters from having remained in the same location for so long. Immediately apparent is Dorian’s well-defined but very large eye. This feature is often seen in the later stages of powerful tropical cyclones, which includes hurricanes and typhoons. As these mature, powerful storms age, their wind field tends to expand. They often undergo what is known as eye wall replacement cycles wherein a 2nd concentric eye wall forms outside of the original inner eye wall. The inner eye wall is choked off and weakens leaving the outer eye wall as the dominant eye wall. The outer eye wall can still contract, but often the storm is left with a larger eye as is the case with Dorian. At the time of this image, Dorian’s maximum sustained winds were still 105 mph, making it a Category 2 storm, but a very large Category 2 storm. GPM data is archived at https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory captured these images of Hurricane Dorian on September 1st (21:22 UTC) as the storm was directly over Abaco Island in The Bahamas. At that time, the storm was a category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h) with gusts over 200 mph.

Tour 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.

Nate made landfall over the weekend along the northern Gulf Coast as a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds reported at 85 mph (~140 kph) by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) first at 7:00pm CDT on Saturday October 7th in Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River then again several hours later at 12:30 am CDT on Sunday October 8th near Buluxi, Mississippi before moving quickly moving northward through northern Alabama and central Tennessee. Because of its rapid movement, Nate did not produce the catastrophic flooding that Harvey did. However, Nate is being blamed for 2 storm-related fatalities in the US and at least 38 across Central America, most in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

These visualizations show the tracks of Atlantic hurricanes during 2017. Data from the Global Precipitation Mission called IMERG is used to show rainfall and data from NOAA's GOES East shows clouds. Storm position and wind speed data from UNISYS are used to show the track lines. The numbers 1 through 5 as well as "T" are displayed when storms change categories. The "T" stands for tropical storm. There are 2 visualizations at various resoltions: - a wide Atlantic view that shows all of the hurricane tracks - a view that follows and zooms in only on Hurricane Harvey These visualizaitons were created to support NASA talks given at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in October 2017.

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.

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.

The Global Precipitation Mission (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 infrared data from the GOES-East satellite. 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.

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 continous supply of warm moist air to sustain the large amount of rain it is producing.

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.

In 2017, we have seen four Atlantic storms rapidly intensify with three of those storms - Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria - making landfall.

When hurricanes intensify a large amount in a short period, scientists call this process rapid intensification. This is the hardest aspect of a storm to forecast and it can be most critical to people’s lives.

While any hurricane can threaten lives and cause damage with storm surges, floods, and extreme winds, a rapidly intensifying hurricane can greatly increase these risks while giving populations limited time to prepare and evacuate.

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.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's core satellite captured Hurricane Kilo throughout its life cycle as Kilo slowly worked it's way westward across the Pacific Ocean. Kilo eventually crossed the international dateline where it officially changed from a "hurricane" to a "typhoon". Along it's way, Kilo put itself in the record books. Kilo was the 3rd named storm of the 2015 hurricane season to cross the international dateline. It was also a very long lasting storm persisting for 21 days, which made it a fairly rare event. Because it was such a long lasting storm, GPM was able to capture it several times throughout the course of it's life span. Such multiple captures of the same storm can help scientists better understand the development of hurricanes.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission core satellite passed over Tropical Storm Fred as it was developing in the Eastern Atlantic early August 30th and saw "hot towers" in the storm, which hinted that the storm was intensifying. Fred became the first Cape Verde hurricane of the 2015 Atlantic season when it was upgraded from a tropical storm on August 31, 2015 at 0600 UTC (2 a.m. EDT). The GPM core observatory satellite flew over on August 30, 2015 at 0236 UTC when Fred was forming from a tropical wave that moved off the African coast. Rainfall was measured by GPM's Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) at the extreme rate of close to 128 mm (5.0 inches) per hour. Rainfall in towering convective storms at Fred's center of circulation were providing the energy necessary for intensification into a hurricane. Three dimensional reflectivity data from GPM's DPR showed that these "hot towers" had storm top heights reaching to 16.2 km (10.0 miles). A "hot tower" is a tall cumulonimbus cloud that reaches at least to the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. It extends approximately 9 miles/14.5 km high in the tropics. These towers are called "hot" because they rise to such altitude due to the large amount of latent heat. Water vapor releases this latent heat as it condenses into liquid. Those towering thunderstorms have the potential for heavy rain. NASA research shows that a tropical cyclone with a hot tower in its eyewall was twice as likely to intensify within six or more hours, than a cyclone that lacked a hot tower.

Tropical Storm Bill made landfall over Texas at approximately 11:45am CST on June 16, 2015. Shortly after midnight, GPM passed over the storm as it slowly worked it's way northward across the already drenched state of Texas. This visualization shows Bill at precisely 12:11:27am CST (6:11:27 GMT) on June 17, 2015. The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs. The Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar provides the three-dimensional view, showing the structure of the storm spiraling inward toward the center, with heavier rain on the north side of the storm. Shades of blue represent ice in the upper part of clouds. Viewed from the side, the stark color change from blue to green marks the transition from ice to rain. For forecasters, GPM's microwave and radar data are part of the toolbox of satellite data, including other low Earth orbit and geostationary satellites, that they use to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes. The addition of GPM data to the current suite of satellite data is timely. Its predecessor precipitation satellite, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, after 18 years of operation was deorbited June 16 (the same day Tropical Storm Bill made landfall). GPM's new high-resolution microwave imager data and the unique radar data ensure that forecasters and modelers won't have a gap in coverage. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. All GPM data products can be found at NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Satellite captured a 3-D image of Typhoon Maysak on March 30th as the storm approached the Yap Islands. The storm later intensified to a category 5-equivalent super typhoon with 150-mph sustained winds.

The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in three dimensions.

GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

A narrated visualization of Hurricane/Typhoon Kilo.

For complete transcript, click here.

A look back at the storms captured by GPM around the world during 2015.

The storms that appear in order are as follows:

1. New England Nor’easter – January 26 – New England, USA 2. Snowstorm – February 17 – Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina, USA 3. Tornadic Thunderstorms in Midwest – March 25 – Oklahoma and Arkansas, USA 4. Typhoon Maysak – March 30 – Yap Islands, Southwest Pacific Ocean 5. Rain Accumulation from Cyclone Quang – April 28 through May 3 - Australia 6. Flooding in Central Texas and Oklahoma – May 19 through May 26 - USA 7. Hurricane Blanca – June 1 – Eastern Pacific Ocean, Baja Peninsula, Mexico 8. Tropical Storm Ashobaa – June 8 – Arabian Sea 9. Tropical Storm Carlos – June 12 – Southwestern Coast, Mexico 10. Tropical Storm Bill – June 16 – Texas, USA 11. USA Rain Accumulation – June through July - USA 12. Tropical Storm Raquel – July 1 – Solomon Islands, South Pacific Ocean 13. Tropical Storm Claudette – July 13 – North Atlantic Ocean 14. Typhoon Nangka – July 15 - Japan 15. Hurricane Delores Remnants Rainfall – July 13 through 20 – Southwestern USA 16. Typhoon Halola – July 21 - Japan 17. Typhoon Soudelor – August 5 – Taiwan and China 18. Hurricane/Typhoon Kilo – August 23 through September 9 – Hawaii and Pacific Ocean 19. Tropical Storm Erika – August 26 – Caribbean Sea 20. Tropical Storm Fred – August 30 – Cape Verde 21. Tropical Depression Nine – September 16 – Central Atlantic Ocean 22. Tropical Storm Ida – September 21 – Central Atlantic Ocean 23. Tropical Storm Niala – September 25 – Hawaii and Pacific Ocean 24. Tropical Storm Marty – September 27 – Southwestern Coast, Mexico 25. Typhoon Dujuan – September 22 through September 29 – Taiwan and China 26. Hurricane Joaquin – September 29 – Caribbean Sea 27. Typhoon Koppu – October 15 - Philippines 28. Hurricane Patricia – October 22 – Texas, USA 29. Tropical Cyclone Chapala – October 28 through November 3 – Yemen and Arabian Sea 30. Tropical Cyclone Megh – November 8 – Yemen and Arabian Sea 31. Typhoon IN-FA – November 19 – Western Pacific Ocean 32. Hurricane Sandra – November 26 – Eastern Pacific Ocean 33. India Flooding – November 28 through December 4 – Tamil Nadu, India 34. Winter Storm Desmond – November 30 through December 7 – United Kingdom 35. Tropical Cyclone 05S – December 9 – Reunion and Mauritius, South Indian Ocean 36. Super Typhoon Melor – December 12 - Philippines 37. Tornadoes and Flooding in Midwest – December 21 through December 28 – Midwestern USA 38. Paraguay Flooding – December 22 through December 29 – Asuncion, Paraguay 39. Tropical Depression 95P – December 29 – Pacific Ocean 40. Tropical Cyclone 06P (ULA) – December 30 – Samoa, South Pacific Ocean 41. Near Real-Time IMERG – December 25 through December 31

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core observatory satellite flew over the United States east coast during a snow cyclone on April 1, 2017. This storm delivered up to 18 inches of snow in some parts of New England. Areas as far south as Norfolk, Virginia received up to 10 inches. This storm was also accompanied by very high winds, ranging from 50 to 80 miles per hour. The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions. GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core observatory satellite flew over the United States northeast coast during a snow storm on April 1, 2017. This snow storm delivered up to 18 inches of snow in some parts of New England. The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions. GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core observatory satellite flew over the United States east coast during a snow storm on December 17, 2016. This print resolution image was created for use on the GPM Senior Review document. The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions. GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

At 10:05 a.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015, the Global Precipitation Measurement mission's Core Observatory flew over a snow storm that covered most of the Washington DC metro area leaving as much as 9 inches of snow in some of the surrounding suburbs.

The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.

GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Satellite captured a 3-D image of a winter storm on Feb. 17 that left six to 12 inches of snow over much of Kentucky, southwestern West Virginia, and northwestern North Carolina. The shades of blue in the 3-D image indicate rates of snowfall with more intense snowfall shown in darker blue. Underneath where it melts into rain, the most intense rainfall is shown in red. You can see a lot of variation in precipitation types over the Southeastern portion of the United States.

The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.

GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

At 5:06 p.m. EST Monday, Jan. 26, 2015, the Global Precipitation Measurement mission's Core Observatory flew over the nor'easter dumping snow on New England. This satellite image shows precipitation rate of rainfall, in green to red, and snowfall, in blue to purple. The center of the storm, shown in 3-D, was offshore with far reaching bands of snowfall. More intense snow rates are shown in shades of blue, which can be seen on the northern edge of the storm and also over land up the coast from New York to Maine and into Canada, as well in the upper atmosphere before turning to heavy rainfall over the ocean.

Nor'easters form when warm moist air traveling north with the Gulf Stream up the coast collides with cold air travelling down from Canada. The combination of moisture and cold can develop into snowstorms. In Jan. 2015, these air masses collided into a storm that brought blizzard conditions with, as of Tuesday morning, up to 30 inches of snow and 70 mile per hour winds across parts of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire New York and Rhode Island. Lesser snow totals also hit New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Snow is expected to continue to fall into Wednesday as the storm moves northeast up the coast.

The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.

GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

On March 17, 2014 the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over the East coast's last snow storm of the 2013-2014 winter season. This was also one of the first major snow storms observed by GPM shortly after it was launched on February 27, 2014. The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions. For forecasters, GPM's microwave and radar data are part of the toolbox of satellite data, including other low Earth orbit and geostationary satellites, that they use to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes. The addition of GPM data to the current suite of satellite data is timely. Its predecessor precipitation satellite, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, is 18 years into what was originally a three-year mission. GPM's new high-resolution microwave imager data and the unique radar data ensure that forecasters and modelers won't have a gap in coverage. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. All GPM data products will be released to the public on September 4, 2104. Current and future data sets are available to registered users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission unites data from ten U.S. and international satellites that measure rainfall and snowfall. The partnership, co-led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is anchored by the GPM Core Observatory, launched on February 27, 2014. Carrying two advanced precipitation instruments, the GPM Microwave Imager and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar, the Core Observatory measures the full range of precipitation types from heavy rainfall to, for the first time, light rain and snowfall. With an orbit that cuts across the path of the other satellites it is also used as a reference standard so that data from all the partner satellites can be meaningfully compared. The combined data from all ten satellites allows scientists to collect precipitation data from all parts of the world in under three hours.

This Winter Olympics, NASA will be studying how well researchers can measure snow from the ground and space and provide better data for snowstorm predictions.

NASA will make these observations as one of 20 agencies from eleven countries in a project led by the Korean Meteorological Administration called the International Collaborative Experiments for PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, or ICE-POP.

NASA.gov feature: NASA Seeks the Gold in Winter Olympics Snow

At the time of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory overpass (April 1, 2017, 0550 UTC), the storm's center of low pressure was south of Long Island. At the mid-levels of the atmosphere, the circulation was centered over northeast Pennsylvania. This led to a classic overrunning, warm conveyor setup, which happened when the counterclockwise low level flow drew in cold air out of the north/northeast (hence "Nor'easter") from Canada. Higher up, warm and moist air from further south was lifted over this cold air and resulted in precipitation in the form of snow at the surface. The heavy band of snow that is visible in the GPM data resulted in 8-14 inch totals over southern Maine and New Hampshire, while totals further south in Massachusetts were limited by some mixing with rain.

The Global Precipitation Measurement can help improve numerical weather predictions of snowfall by measuring the size and shape distribution of snow particles, layer by layer, in a storm.

On March 17, 2014 the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over the East coast's last snow storm of the 2013-2014 winter season. This was also one of the first major snow storms observed by GPM shortly after it was launched on February 27, 2014. The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions. For forecasters, GPM's microwave and radar data are part of the toolbox of satellite data, including other low Earth orbit and geostationary satellites, that they use to monitor tropical cyclones and hurricanes.

GPM Deputy Project Scientist Gail Skofronick-Jackson discusses GPM's snowfall measurement capabilities and the challenges of measuring snow.

For six weeks in Ontario, Canada, scientists and engineers lead a field campaign to study the science and mechanics of falling snow. The datasets retrieved will be used to generate algorithms which translate what the GPM Core satellite "sees" into precipitation rates, including that of falling snow. Ground validation science manager Walt Petersen gives a summary of the GCPEx field campaign. Field campaigns are critical in improving satellite observations and precipitation measurements.

This visualization shows the IMERG precipitation product for April, May, and June of 2014. This visualization was created in part to support Earth Day 2020 media releases.

The daily climatology dataset covers January 2001 to December 2018, computed as a trailing 30-day average to reduce the random noise due to isolated big events. Notable features include the annual cycle of the InterTropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) following the motion of the Sun (with a time lag) over both land and ocean, the seasonal shift of the Asian Monsoon between South Asia in the boreal summer and Australia in the boreal winter, the North American Monsoon in the late boreal summer in northern Mexico and southwestern U.S., and the dry summer/wet winter pattern in the Mediterranean Sea area and the west coast of the U.S.

The Grand Average Climatology dataset covers June 2000 to May 2019. It shows the well-known structure of global precipitation: Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) near the Equator, South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) and smaller South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ), relatively dry subtropical highs, and mid-latitude storm tracks. The relatively fine spatial resolution (0.1° lat./lon.) gives a more detailed picture than the previous NASA product (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission [TRMM] Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis [TMPA], 0.25°), and its near-global coverage, better sampling in time, and improved algorithms provide wider coverage and more confidence in the results. The satellite input allows NASA researchers to estimate precipitation over both land and ocean, which networks of surface sensors do not provide. The most reliable estimates are provided over ocean; warm land is second-best, coastal areas are third, and snow/ice-covered regions are least certain.

The daily cycle of weather, also known as the diurnal cycle, shapes how and when our weather develops and is fundamental to regulating our climate. These animations show the most detailed view of the diurnal cycles over the United States. They were created using NASA's newest extended precipitation record known as the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM, or IMERG analysis. The IMERG analysis combines almost 20 years of rain and snow data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the joint NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM). Learn more at NASA.gov.

This visualization of the precipitation from IMERG, averaged over 90 days, shows how the broad patterns of global precipitation fluctuate during this particular time period. Unlike the climatology, the vigorous, relatively small-scale precipitation systems create a very "lumpy", continually evolving pattern. Most notably here, the 2015-2016 El Niño is one of the strongest on record. The changes in the atmospheric circulation shift the rainfall that typically falls in the western Pacific—over Southeast Asia and northern Australia—to the central or eastern Pacific.

The anomalies show the deviation from the normal seasonal cycle of precipitation. These maps help interpret the accumulation maps by isolating attention on the changes. Most notably here, the 2015-2016 El Niño is one of the strongest on record. The changes in the atmospheric circulation shift the rainfall that typically falls in the western Pacific—over Southeast Asia and northern Australia—to the central or eastern Pacific. As well, there are dry conditions across the Caribbean, tropical Atlantic, and northern South America. This display reduces the welter of "ordinary" precipitation and focuses attention on the systematic changes that are persistent, but not necessarily large enough to be readily noticed in the accumulations.

California has been experiencing a drought since 2012, but the first months of 2017 have brought some relief in the form of torrential rains. These rains have been brought to California in a series of atmospheric rivers, long narrow channels of water vapor in the atmosphere that reach from tropical latitudes to the coast of California. These channels bring rainfall to the state when they are disrupted by atmospheric conditions over California's eastern mountains. This visualization of atmospheric water vapor and precipitation during the first three months of February clearly show the successive atmospheric rivers and the resulting rainfall.

After more than four years of drought, Californians may wonder where the current rain is coming from. Using satellites, NASA scientists have a unique view of the sources of precipitation, and how it reaches the western United States. Rain is often carried by narrow tendrils of moisture called atmospheric rivers that occur all over the world, shown here in white. The atmospheric rivers that affect the western United States are known as the Pineapple Express because they transport water vapor from as far south as Hawaii to California. When the moisture reaches land, it is forced up over the hills and mountains where it cools, producing significant rainfall. This type of precipitation provides about 40 percent of the state’s annual water supply.

NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement Mission or GPM core satellite captured Hurricane Matthew in 3-D as it made landfall on Haiti and as it travelled up to the Florida coast. GPM flew directly over the storm several times between October 2 - October 6, 2016. The most recent view on October 6 reveals massive amounts of rainfall being produced by the storm as it approaches Florida.

The GPM core satellite carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.

For more information about the science behind Hurricane Matthew visit: http://www.nasa.gov/matthew

For the latest storm warnings and safety information please consult your local news channels and the National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Video credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng

Music credit: Diamond Skies by Andrew Skeet [PRS], Anthony Phillips [PRS] from the KillerTracks catalog

Significant rain fell in the continental United States during the summer of 2016. Serious flooding occured in both Louisiana and Maryland.

A week-long series of heavy rain storms across Texas in late May to early June of 2016 led to flash floods from Houston to Dallas. This rain is captured in a rain accumulation visualization derived from the IMERG precipitation dataset.

The monsoon is a seasonal rain and wind pattern that occurs all over the world. Through NASA satellites and models we can see the monsoon patterns like never before. Monsoon rains provide important reservoirs of water that sustain human activities like agriculture and supports the natural environment through replenishment of aquifers. This visualization uses NASA precipitation and soil moisture data to show how the monsoon develops over North America.

This visualization shows the correlation and lag time of surface soil moisture following precipitation events over Australia, India, and the United States. It uses the new NASA-USDA-FAS Soil Moisture product, a joint effort of NASA and the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, and the global Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) precipitation dataset, which provides rainfall rates for the entire world every thirty minutes. This animation shows the 30-minute rainfall product, while the soil moisture data is a three-day moving average.

This animation shows the accumulation of rainfall over the United States during December 2015, from the IMERG precipitation dataset.

This visualization of assimilated surface winds from MERRA over the IMERG global precipitation data set was created for a forthcoming Science-on-a Sphere program about the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's core observatory launched on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called, IMERG, which combines data from 12 satellites into a single seamless global precipitation map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission launched on Feb. 27, 2014. It is a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission launched on Feb. 27, 2014. It is a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from th flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides. The NASA Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. THe GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Here the GLC is shown with precipitation data detected by NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrieval for the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) (IMERG). Landslide inventories are critical to support investigations of where and when landslides have happened and may occur in the future; however, there is surprisingly little information on the historical occurrence of landslides at the global scale. This visualization displays all rainfall-triggered landslides from 2007 through March 2015 from a publically available global rainfall-triggered landslide catalog(GLC). This is a valuable database for characterizing global patterns of landslide occurence and evaluating relationshipswith extreme precipitation at regional and global scales. For more information on the Global Landslide Catalog, please visit http://ojo-streamer.herokuapp.com

Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from th flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides. The NASA Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. THe GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Landslide inventories are critical to support investigations of where and when landslides have happened and may occur in the future; however, there is surprisingly little information on the historical occurrence of landslides at the global scale. This visualization displays all rainfall-triggered landslides from 2007 through March 2015 from a publically available global rainfall-triggered landslide catalog(GLC). This is a valuable database for characterizing global patterns of landslide occurence and evaluating relationshipswith extreme precipitation at regional and global scales. For more information on the Global Landslide Catalog, please visit http://ojo-streamer.herokuapp.com

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

The ten satellites in the Global Precipitation Measurement Constellation provide unprecedented information about the rain and snow across the entire Earth. This visualization shows the constellation in action, taking precipitation measurements underneath the satellite orbits. As time progresses and the Earth's surface is covered with measurements, the structure of the Earth's preciptation becomes clearer, from the constant rainfall patterns along the Equator to the storm fronts in the mid-latitudes. The dynamic nature of the precipitation is revealed as time speeds up and the satellite data swaths merge into a continuous animation of changing rain and snowfall. Finally, the video fades into an animation of IMERG, the newly available data set of global precipitation every thirty minutes that is derived from this satellite data.

The global IMERG precpitation dataset provides rainfall rates for the entire world every thirty minutes. Using this dataset, it is possible to calculate the amount of accumulated rainfal for any region over a period of time. This animation shows the accumulation of rainfall across the globe for a week in August, 2014. In addition to the dramatic accumulation near Japan due to Typhoon Halong and the track of Hurricane Bertha off the eastern coast of the United States, it is also possible to see a rare August storm over the North Sea near Europe, the origins of Hurricane Gonzalo on the western coast of Africa, and a deep tropical depression that produced floods across northern India.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines all of these data from 12 satellites into a single, seamless map.

The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth’s climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

Rain, snow, hail, ice, and every slushy mix in between make up the precipitation that touches everyone on our planet. But not all places rain equally. Precipitation falls differently in different parts of the world, as you see in NASA's new video that captures every shower, every snow storm and every hurricane from August 4 to August 14, 2014. The GPM Core Observatory, co-led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was launched on Feb 27, 2014, and provides advanced instruments that can see rain and falling snow all the way through the atmosphere. This Core Observatory serves as the reference standard to unite preciptiation observations from a dozen satellites, which together produce the most detailed world-wide view of everything from light rain to heavy rain and, for the first time, falling snow. Scientists merged data from 12 precipitation satellites into a single seamless map called the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), or IMERG. Every 30 minutes, IMERG generates a new global map with a resolution of 10 kilometers by 10 km (6.2 miles by 6.2 mi), about the size of a small suburb. These comprehensive maps allow scientists to observe changes in precipitation patterns across 87 percent of the globe and through time.

Continuing key observations of the Earth is really important to see how our atmosphere, land and oceans are changing over time. A long term record, combined with cutting edge observations from the new NASA Earth System Observatory, will continue to push boundaries to better understand our ever changing Earth.

NASA has just released its newest and most comprehensive estimate of rain and snow covering nearly 20 years. Version 6 of NASA's IMERG -- the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) -- combines information from a constellation of satellties are operating in Earth orbit, at a given time, to estimate precipitation over the majority of the Earth's surface. This algorithm is particularly valuable over the majority of the Earth's surface that lacks precipitation-measuring instruments on the ground. What is new in Version 6 IMERG is that the algorithm can now fuse the early precipititation estimates collected in 2000-2014 during the operation of the TRMM satellite with more recent precipitation estimates collected during operation of the GPM satellite. The longer the record, the more valuable it is, as researchers and application developers will attest. TRMM and GPM are two satellites specially designed to provide the most reliable space-based estimates of preciptiation, and both satellites are joint missions between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The most detailed view of our daily weather has been created using NASA's newest extended precipitation record known as the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM, or IMERG analysis. The IMERG analysis combines almost 20 years of rain and snow data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the joint NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM). The daily cycle of weather, also known as the diurnal cycle, shapes how and when our weather develops and is fundamental to regulating our climate.

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.

On February 27, 2019, we celebrate five years in orbit for the NASA/JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement mission, or GPM. Launched from Japan on February 27, 2014, GPM has changed the way we see precipitation. It has provided unprecedented three-dimensional views of precipitation light rain to intense thunderstorms. To mark its five years, we’re looking back at five big moments in GPM’s history of observing storms.

Precipitation (falling rain and snow) is our fresh water reservoir in the sky and is fundamental to life on Earth. A Global Tour of Precipitation from NASA shows how rain and snowfall moves around the world from the vantage of space using measurements from the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory, or GPM. This is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and offers the most detailed and worldwide view of rain and snowfall ever created.

This narrated movie is created for Science On a Sphere, a platform designed by NOAA that displays movies on a spherical screen. Audiences can view the movie from any side of the sphere and can see any part of Earth. During this show viewers will be guided through a variety of precipitation patterns and display features such as the persistent band of the heaviest rainfall around the equator and tight swirls of tropical storms in the Northern Hemisphere. At subtropical latitudes in both hemispheres there are persistent dry areas and this is where most of the major deserts reside. Sea surface temperature and winds are also shown to highlight the interconnectedness of the Earth system. The movie concludes with near real-time global precipitation data from GPM, which is provided to Science On a Sphere roughly six hours after the observation. To download this movie formatted for a spherical screen, visit NOAA's official Science On a Sphere website below: ‌• A Global Tour of Precipitation from NASA ‌• Near Real-Time Global Precipitation Data

Not all raindrops are created equal. The size of falling raindrops depends on several factors, including where the cloud producing the drops is located on the globe and where the drops originate in the cloud. For the first time, scientists have three-dimensional snapshots of raindrops and snowflakes around the world from space, thanks to the joint NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. With the new global data on raindrop and snowflake sizes this mission provides, scientists can improve rainfall estimates from satellite data and in numerical weather forecast models, helping us better understand and prepare for extreme weather events. Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube Channel.

For more information go here. To get young students reading about science, NASA is trying something different. Instead of a press release or a scientific paper, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission has launched a Japanese manga-style comic book. GPM, a satellite collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, provides global estimates of rain and snow every three hours using advanced instruments. In spring 2013, a GPM Anime Challenge was held for artists from around the world aged 13 years and up to develop an anime-themed character for teaching students about the GPM mission. The lead characters in the anime project were selected from more than 40 submissions by a panel of NASA scientists and outreach specialists. The grand prize winners were "GPM" by Yuki Kiriga of Tokyo, Japan and "Mizu-chan" by Sabrynne Buchholz of Hudson, Colorado. With the lead characters selected, the GPM team crafted a story that wove together the science and engineering of the mission in bringing GPM from development to launch and ultimately to its orbit around Earth, and hired an artist to bring the story to life with artwork. Supplemental materials to support the text include an overview of the GPM mission, a description of the satellite and its instruments, examples of the data it collects, descriptions of some of the constellation partners, and a glossary of science terms used in the comic. The comic book can be found here. Comic book credits: Artist: Aja Moore GPM Character Artist: Yuki Kiriga Mizu-Chan Character Artist: Sabrynne Buchholz Comic Book Script: Kristen Weaver, Ellen Gray Web Design and Editor: Jacob Reed Comic Book Editors/Advisors: Dalia Kirschbaum, Dorian Janney, Kasha Patel

The second spinoff video for the Science on a Sphere film "Water Falls." This video looks at the uses and advantages of remote sensing.

A timelapse (2011-2014) of GPM in the clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center and at Tanegashima Space Center, Japan.

In a data-processing room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., racks of high-powered computers are getting ready to make a map. It's not the familiar satellite map of farms, forests and cities. Instead, this map will show what's hovering above the ground — snowfall and rainfall. The data will come from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, an international partnership led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The GPM Core Observatory will launch in early 2014, but the mission goes beyond data gathering data from one satellite. Eleven spacecraft from U.S. agencies and other countries, all carrying similar instruments to measure rainfall, will contribute data to this global rain map. Compiling observations from these eleven sources into one unified global data set is the job of the Precipitation Processing System at Goddard.

This is a spinoff video for the Science On a Sphere film, "Water Falls."

On March 10, the Core Observatory passed over an extra-tropical cyclone about 1055 miles (1700 kilometers) due east of Japan's Honshu Island. This visualization shows data from the GPM Microwave Imager, which observes different types of precipitation with 13 channels. Scientists analyze that data and then use it to calculate the light to heavy rain rates and falling snow within the storm.

First data visualization of the three-dimensional structure of precipitation collected by the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar aboard the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory. The image shows rain rates across a vertical cross-section approximately 4.4 miles (7 kilometers) high through an extra-tropical cyclone observed off the coast of Japan on March 10, 2014. The DPR 152-mile (245 kilometers) wide swath is nested within the center of the GPM Microwave Imager's wider observation path. Red areas indicate heavy rainfall while yellow and blue indicate less intense rainfall. The GPM Core Observatory collects precipitation information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours.

Built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the GPM spacecraft travelled roughly 7,300 miles (11,750 kilometers) to its launch site at Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island, Japan, where it is scheduled for liftoff on Feb 27, 2014 1:07 pm (EST). GPM's Core Observatory is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to study rainfall and snowfall around the globe, including weather and storms that the Core Observatory previewed on its trans-Pacific journey.

For the past three years, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory has gone from components and assembly drawings to a fully functioning satellite at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The satellite has now arrived in Japan, where it will lift off in early 2014.

The journey to the launch pad has been a long and painstaking process. It began with the most basic assembly of the satellite's frame and electrical system, continued through the integration of its two science instruments, and has now culminated in the completion of a dizzying array of environmental tests to check and recheck that GPM Core Observatory will survive its new home in orbit.

This short video explains how a raindrop falls through the atmosphere and why a more accurate look at raindrops can improve estimates of global precipitation.

For a printable droplet hand out click here.

Botswana's Okavango Delta and the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans are two ends of a 360-mile round trip zebra migration, the second longest on Earth. In this animation, shades of red show dry areas, green represents vegetation, and the dots show GPS tracked zebras. The zebras begin at the Okavango Delta in late September. After the dry Southern hemisphere winter, November rains signal it is time to begin their two-week journey to the Salt Pans. The zebras feast on nutrient-rich grasses all summer, and return to the Delta as the rain peters out in April.

Fences blocked this zebra migration from 1968 to 2004. After they came down, researchers began tracking zebras with GPS and discovered this migration. They compared the zebras' location to NASA satellite data of rainfall and vegetation, and they found that migrating zebras have quickly learned when to leave the Delta and the Salt Pans using environmental cues. Researchers then use these cues to predict when the zebras will be on the move, a powerful tool for conservation.

The need for measuring the when and where and how much of precipitation goes beyond our weekend plans. We also need to know precipitaiton on a global scale. Rain gauges and radars are useful but are inconsistent and do not cover enough of the globe to provide accurate precipitation rates. The GPM constellation will cover the globe and give us a more comprehensive look at precipitation.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is an international satellite mission to provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch a "Core" satellite carrying advanced instruments that will set a new standard for precipitation measurements from space. The data they provide will be used to unify precipitation measurements made by an international network of partner satellites to quantify when, where, and how much it rains or snows around the world.

The GPM mission will help advance our understanding of Earth's water and energy cycles, improve the forecasting of extreme events that cause natural disasters, and extend current capabilities of using satellite precipitation information to directly benefit society.

GPM enters its testing phase in the Space Environmental Simulator (SES).

When it rains it pours, goes the saying, and for the last 15 years, the data on tropical rainfall have poured in. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was launched on Nov. 27, 1997, and for the last decade and a half has enabled precipitation science that has had far reaching applications across the globe. Rain is one of the most important natural processes on Earth, and nowhere does it rain more than across the tropics. Orbiting at an angle to the equator that covers 35 degrees north to 35 degrees south of the equator, TRMM carries five instruments that collectively measure the intensity of rainfall, characteristics of the water vapor and clouds, and lightning associated with the rain events. One of the instruments, the Precipitation Radar, built by NASA's mission partner the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is the first precipitation radar flown in space. It returns images of storms that for the first time have revealed close up three-dimensional views of how rainbands in tropical cyclones develop, potentially indicating how strong the storms might become.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is an international satellite mission to provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch a "Core" satellite carrying advanced instruments that will set a new standard for precipitation measurements from space. The data they provide will be used to unify precipitation measurements made by an international network of partner satellites to quantify when, where, and how much it rains or snows around the world.

The GPM mission will help advance our understanding of Earth's water and energy cycles, improve the forecasting of extreme events that cause natural disasters, and extend current capabilities of using satellite precipitation information to directly benefit society.

The Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory arrived on Friday, March 16 and was unloaded today at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Comprised of two radars, the DPR is one of two instruments that will fly on the Core Observatory scheduled for launch in February 2014. The GPM mission will provide a new generation of satellite observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours for scientific research and societal benefits. NASA's mission partner JAXA developed the DPR in cooperation with Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology. The instrument will provide 3-D measurements of the shapes and sizes of raindrops and snowflakes and other physical characteristics that will allow scientists to better understand the physical properties of storms.

Features in Earth’s atmosphere, spawned by the heat of the Sun and the rotation of the Earth, transport water and energy around the globe. Clouds and precipitation shown here are from NASA’s MERRA-2 reanalysis, a retrospective blend of a weather model and conventional and satellite observations. Within the mid-latitudes, winds move clouds from west to east. Within the tropics easterly trade winds converge along the equator to create a moisture rich cluster of clouds, convection, and precipitation called the intertropical convergence zone, or ITCZ. Disturbances in its flow transport immense amounts of moisture and energy from the tropics to the poles. Studies have shown that atmospheric rivers account for the vast majority of the poleward transport of water vapor. The American Meteorological Society defines an atmospheric river as “a long, narrow, and transient corridor of strong horizontal water vapor transport that is typically associated with a low-level jet stream ahead of the cold front of an extratropical cyclone.” A common measure for the strength of an atmospheric river is the integrated water vapor transport, or the amount of moisture that is moved from one place to another by the flow of the atmosphere. The blue shading shown here gives a three-dimensional view of the water vapor transport. Tropical moisture is pulled in from the ITCZ and in this example, converges with other moisture sources to form an atmospheric river. The feature then travels towards the west coast of the United States as a sub-class of atmospheric rivers commonly referred to as the “pineapple express” due to its origin near Hawai’i. The atmospheric river is guided by the semi-permanent sub-tropical high pressure off the coast of California and the Baja Peninsula as well as the Aleutian low in the Gulf of Alaska. The pressure gradient between the clockwise flow of the Californian high and the counterclockwise flow of the Aleutian low funnel the atmospheric moisture into a narrow corridor. The more intense the pressure gradient is, the stronger the winds are that transport the water vapor. Extreme rainfall has also been associated with the more intense gradients. Much of the moisture stays close to the surface but the rising motion of the low pressure to the north results in the air cooling, condensing the water vapor into a liquid. Precipitation over the ocean falls along the feature’s cold front on its northern side. Another way that air can rise and condense into precipitation is through orographic lift. When air encounters the mountains along the west coast of the United States, it is forced upwards. The rising air becomes saturated, causing rain and snow to fall, particularly on the windward side of the mountain. The flow of air continues eastward, depleted of its moisture. The precipitation that falls because of atmospheric rivers is important for the hydrologic cycle in the western United States. The winter buildup of the snowpack provides valuable freshwater resources. Despite being beneficial at times, atmospheric river induced precipitation can also be destructive. The occurrence of extreme atmospheric river precipitation events, such as the one that occurred in this example, can result in widespread flooding and mudslides. Atmospheric rivers are not unique to the west coast of North America and occur around the globe, including Europe, New Zealand, the Middle East, Greenland, and Antarctica. The study of global phenomenon such as atmospheric rivers over the past four decades is made possible through NASA’s MERRA-2 reanalysis, a spatially and temporally consistent blend of satellite and conventional observations with a numerical model. With a dataset that provides hourly information around the globe since 1980, there is still much that can be learned about Earth’s atmosphere and the transport of water and energy around the globe.

The Global Precipitation Meaurement (GPM) mission produces NASA's most comprehensive estimate of global rain and snowfall, the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM, or IMERG. IMERG is largely based on data from the GPM constellation - a group of satellites independently operated by many agencies that pool their data for global precipitation estimates. These satellites currently include the GPM Core Observatory, other U.S. civilian satellites (Aqua, NOAA-19, NOAA-20, Suomi NPP), U.S. defense satellites (DMSP F-16, DMSP F-17, DMSP- F18), and international agency satellites (GCOM-W1, Metop-B, Metop-C, and MeghaTropiques). The IMERG dataset starts in June 2000, providing a sufficiently long record that seasonal/regional averages, or climatology, can be computed with reasonable confidence. By comparing the progression of the observed precipitation with climatology, we can generate maps of showing how much observations depart from normal. In the animation, each day's variation from the average precipitation is added to the map, then allowed to gradually fade away over three months so that time changes in the larger-scale patterns are easier to see. Researchers sometimes refer to these deviations from the climatology as "precipitation anomalies".

This animation shows the orbits of NASA's fleet of Earth observing spacecraft that are considered operational as of December 2021. Note that Landsat 9 is still completing the commissioning period and is expected to be declared operational in mid-January 2022. The clouds used in this version are from a high resolution GEOS model run at 10 minute time steps interpolated down to the per-frame level. Changes to this version include: removal of Landsat-7 and addition of Landsat-9.

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Spacecraft included: • Aqua • Aura • CALIPSO: Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation • CYGNSS-1: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 1 • CYGNSS-2: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 2 • CYGNSS-3: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 3 • CYGNSS-4: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 4 • CYNGSS-5: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 5 • CYGNSS-6: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 6 • CYGNSS-7: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 7 • CYGNSS-8: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 8 • Cloudsat • GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement • GRACE-FO-1: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On-1 • GRACE-FO-2: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On-2 • ICESat-2 • ISS: International Space Station • Landsat 8 • Landsat 9 • OCO-2: Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 • SMAP: Soil Moisture Passive Active • Suomi NPP: Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership • Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich • Terra

The Global Fire WEather Database (GFWED) integrates different weather factors influencing the likelihood of a vegetation fire starting and spreading. It is based on the Fire Weather Index (FWI) System, which tracks the dryness of three general fuel classes, and the potential behavior of a fire if it were to start. Each day, FWI values are calculated from global weather data, including satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The FWI System is the most widely used fire danger rating system in the world, and has been adopted for different boreal, temperate and tropical fire environments. GFWED provides a globally consistent fire weather dataset for fire researchers and managers to apply locally. The Fire Weather Index component is suitable as a general index of fire danger. Globally, shifts in continental-scale fire activity follow seasonal changes in the FWI. Over South America and Africa, regions of high FWI and active agricultural burning shift with the tropical rain belts, seen in the GPM precipitation overlay. Over North America and Eurasia, the FWI will ‘activate’ in the spring, and shows how week-to-week surges in fire activity can be driven by high FWI values. In Indonesia, the Drought Code (DC) component is used to track the potential for agricultural fires to escape underground into peat soils, where they cannot be extinguished until the return of the monsoon rains. From August to October, areas of concentrated fire activity and high DC caused continuous smoke emissions and hazardously poor air quality until the return of the monsoon rains in November. Scientists are working with the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to augment their operational FWI system with GPM precipitation. In British Columbia, Canada, 2017 was a severe fire year, where the FWI is used for fire prevention and pre-preparedness. Through July and August, stretches of high FWI in the interior led to periods of extreme fire behavior and the highest annual recorded burned area for the province. More information on GFWED and instructions on accessing the data are available from https://data.giss.nasa.gov/impacts/gfwed/

Diarrheal diseases such as cholera continue to be a public health threat. Prediction of an outbreak of diarrheal disease, specifically cholera, following a natural disaster remains a challenge, especially in regions lacking basic safe civil infrastructure [water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)]. The underlying mechanism of a cholera outbreak is associated with disruption in the human access to safe WASH infrastructure that results in the population using unsafe water containing pathogenic vibrios. Presence and abundance of Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of cholera, are related to modalities of the environment and regional weather as well as the climate systems. Major cholera outbreaks occur in two dominant forms: (a) epidemic, characterized by a sudden and sporadic occurrence of a large number of cholera cases and (b) endemic, in which human cholera cases occur on annual scales with distinct and characteristic seasonality. Natural disasters characteristically leave a trail of destruction, the result of which may be a human population deprived of access to WASH infrastructure. For example, under normal circumstances, the likelihood of a cholera outbreak is low, since the human population adapts to its specific behavioral pattern of water use. However, following a natural disaster, human behavior will change, if the availability, use pattern, and storage capacity of drinking water are altered as a result of the WASH infrastructure having been severely damaged and/or rendered unusable. Forecasting a cholera risk is challenging because of the lack of data on pathogen abundance in local water systems, weather and climate patterns and existing WASH infrastructure. Vibrios, including V. cholerae are autochthonous to the natural aquatic ecosystem, hence eradication is not feasible. A new modeling approach using satellite data will likely to enhance our ability to develop cholera risk maps in several regions of the globe. The model (GCRM) is based on monthly air temperature, precipitation, availability of WASH infrastructure, population density and severity of natural disaster. The outputs of GCRM can be visualized on 0.10x0.10, with the hope of improving the spatial scale as new data products are incorporated into the model.

A new model has been developed to look at how potential landslide activity is changing around the world. A global Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA) has been developed to provide an indication of where and when landslides may be likely around the world every 30 minutes. This model uses surface susceptibility (including slope, vegetation, road networks, geology, and forest cover loss) and satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to provide moderate to high “nowcasts.” This visualization shows the landslide nowcast results leveraging nearly two decades of Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) rainfall over 2001-2016 to identify a landslide climatology by month at a 1 km grid cell. The average nowcast values by month highlight the key landslide hotspots, such as the Southeast Asia during the monsoon season in June through August and the U.S. Pacific Northwest in December and January.

Overlaid with these nowcasts values are a Global Landslide Catalog(GLC) that was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. The visualization shows the distribution of landslides each month based on the estimated number of fatalities the event caused. The GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and contains over 11,000 reports and growing. A new project called the Community the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository, or COOLR, provides the opportunity for the community to view landslide reports and contribute their own. The goal of the COOLR project is to create the largest global public online landslide catalog available and open to for anyone everyone to share, download, and analyze landslide information. More information on this system is available at: https://landslides.nasa.gov.

Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from the flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides.

Landslides occur when an environmental trigger like an extreme rain event, often a severe storm or hurricane, and gravity's downward pull sets soil and rock in motion. Conditions beneath the surface are often unstable already, so the heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks, or debris- or all combined- to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. Unfortunately, people and property are often swept up in these unexpected mass movements. Landslides can also be caused by earthquakes, surface freezing and thawing, ice melt, the collapse of groundwater reservoirs, volcanic eruptions, and erosion at the base of a slope from the flow of river or ocean water. But torrential rains most commonly activate landslides. A new model has been developed to look at how potential landslide activity is changing around the world. A global Landslide Hazard Assessment model for Situational Awareness (LHASA) has been developed to provide an indication of where and when landslides may be likely around the world every 30min. This model uses surface susceptibility (including slope, vegetation, road networks, geology, and forest cover loss) and satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to provide moderate to high “nowcasts.” This visualization shows the landslide nowcast results leveraging nearly two decades of Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) rainfall over 2001-2016 to identify a landslide climatology by month at a 1 km grid cell. The average nowcast values by month highlight the key landslide hotspots, such as the Southeast Asia during the monsoon season in June through August and the U.S. Pacific Northwest in December and January.
Overlaid with these nowcasts values are a Global Landslide Catalog was developed with the goal of identifying rainfall-triggered landslide events around the world, regardless of size, impact, or location. The GLC considers all types of mass movements triggered by rainfall, which have been reported in the media, disaster databases, scientific reports, or other sources. The visualization shows the distribution of landslides each month based on the estimated number of fatalities the event caused. The GLC has been compiled since 2007 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and contains over 11,000 reports and growing. A new project called the Community the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository, or COOLR, provides the opportunity for the community to view landslide reports and contribute their own. The goal of the COOLR project is to create the largest global public online landslide catalog available and open to for anyone everyone to share, download, and analyze landslide information. More information on this system is available at: https://landslides.nasa.gov.

The monsoon is a seasonal rain and wind pattern that occurs over South Asia (among other places). Through NASA satellites and models we can see the monsoon patterns like never before. Monsoon rains provide important reservoirs of water that sustain human activities like agriculture and supports the natural environment through replenishment of aquifers. However, too much rainfall routinely causes disasters in the region, including flooding of the major rivers and landslides in areas of steep topography. This visualization uses a combination of NASA satellite data and models to show how and why the monsoon develops over this region. In the summer the land gets hotter, heating the atmosphere and pulling in cooler, moisture-laden air from the oceans. This causes pulses in heavy rainfall throughout the region. In the winter the land cools off and winds move towards the warmer ocean and suppressing rainfall on land.

The visualizations here are based on the visualization "Monsoons: Wet, Dry, Repeat".

The global IMERG precpitation dataset provides rainfall rates for the entire world every thirty minutes. Using this dataset, it is possible to calculate the amount of accumulated rainfal for any region over a period of time. This animation shows the accumulation of rainfall across the globe for a week in August, 2014. In addition to the dramatic accumulation near Japan due to Typhoon Halong and the track of Hurricane Bertha off the eastern coast of the United States, it is also possible to see a rare August storm over the North Sea near Europe, the origins of Hurricane Gonzalo on the western coast of Africa, and a deep tropical depression that produced floods across northern India.

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission has produced its first global map of rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core Observatory launched one year ago on Feb. 27, 2014 as a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and acts as the standard to unify precipitation measurements from a network of 12 satellites. The result is NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM data product, called IMERG, which combines data from all 12 satellites into a single, seamless map. The map covers more of the globe than any previous precipitation data set and is updated every half hour, allowing scientists to see how rain and snow storms move around nearly the entire planet. As scientists work to understand all the elements of Earth's climate and weather systems, and how they could change in the future, GPM provides a major step forward in providing the scientific community comprehensive and consistent measurements of precipitation.

Eleven days after the Feb. 27 launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, the two instruments aboard took their first joint images of an interesting precipitation event. On March 10, the Core Observatory passed over an extra-tropical cyclone about 1055 miles (1700 kilometers) due east of Japan's Honshu Island. The storm formed from the collision of a cold front wrapping around a warm front, emerging over the ocean near Okinawa on March 8. It moved northeast over the ocean south of Japan, drawing cold air west-to-east over the land, a typical winter weather pattern that also brought heavy snow over Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four main islands. After the GPM images were taken, the storm continued to move eastward, slowly intensifying before weakening in the central North Pacific. This visualization shows data from the GPM Microwave Imager, which observes different types of precipitation with 13 channels. Scientists analyze that data and then use it to calculate the light to heavy rain rates and falling snow within the storm.
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     GPM GMI First Light (id 11508)
     GPM DPR First Light (id 11509)

Images and animation from the GPM DPR first light.

The Global Precipitation Measurement, or GPM, mission will use an international constellation of satellites to study global rain, snow and ice to better understand our climate, weather, and hydrometeorological processes. We cannot understand the water and energy cycle or predict weather and climate without an accurate knowledge of the intensity and distribution of global precipitation. Measurement of various aspects of precipitation (e.g. distribution, amount, rates, and the associated heat release) represents one of the most challenging research problems in Earth science. Yet, accurate global precipitation measurements will benefit weather, climate, hydro-meteorological, and applications communities alike. The concept of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is NASA's response to the need for accurate global precipitation measurement.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is co-led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). NASA and JAXA will provide a GPM Core satellite to serve as a reference for precipitation measurements made by a constellation of satellites. The GPM Core satellite carries two instruments: a state-of-the-art radiometer called the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and the first space-borne Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR), which sees the 3D structure of falling rain and snow. The DPR and GMI work in concert to provide a unique database that will be used to improve the accuracy and consistency of measurements from all partner satellites, which will then be combined into the uniform global precipitation dataset.

This animation shows the scanning capabilities of the GMI and DPR onboard the GPM Core satellite. Heavy rainfall is shown in red and light rainfall in blue. The DPR shows 3D precipitation in a midlatitude storm from two overlapping swaths. The Ka-band frequency scans across a region of 78 miles (125 kilometers) and is nested within the wider scan of the Ku-band frequency of 147 miles (245 kilometers). JAXA and Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) built the DPR. The GMI, shown as the flat precipitation values,constantly scans a region 550 miles (885 kilometers) across. The Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation built the GMI under contract with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

The GPM Core observatory is currently being built and tested at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is scheduled to launch from Tanegashima space center in Japan in early 2014.

Nine U.S. and international satellites will soon be united by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, a partnership co-led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). NASA and JAXA will provide the GPM Core satellite to serve as a reference for precipitation measurements made by this constellation of satellites, which will be combined into a single global dataset continually refreshed every three hours.

While each partner satellite has its own mission objective, they all carry a type of instrument called a radiometer that measures radiated energy from rainfall and snowfall. The GPM Core satellite carries two instruments: a state-of-the-art radiometer called the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and the first space-borne Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR), which sees the 3D structure of falling rain and snow. The DPR and GMI work in concert to provide a unique database that will be used to improve the accuracy and consistency of measurements from all partner satellites, which will then be combined into the uniform global precipitation dataset.

In this animation the orbit paths of the partner satellites of the GPM constellation fill in blue as the instruments pass over Earth. Rainfall appears light blue for light rain, yellow for moderate, and red for heavy rain. Partner satellites are traced in green and purple, and the GPM Core is traced in red.

The GPM Core observatory is currently being built and tested at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is scheduled to launch from Tanegashima space center in Japan in early 2014.

NASA is flying an airborne science laboratory through Canadian snowstorms for six weeks in support of a difficult task of the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission: measuring snowfall from space. GPM is an international satellite mission scheduled for launch in 2014 that will provide next-generation observations of worldwide rain and snow every three hours. It is the first precipitation mission designed to detect falling snow from space. NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory flew this flight path on Jan 19, 2012 in support of NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement Cold-season Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx) snow study. The GCPEx field campaign will help scientists match measurements of snow in the air and on the ground.

A profile video of Rachael Kroodsma.

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A profile video of Joe Zagrodnik.

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Bill Paradis, Planner and Scheduler

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Alexia Harper, Mechanical Engineer

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Carlton Peters, Thermal Product Development Lead

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Dave McComas, Flight Software Development

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Lynette Marbley, Chief Safety & Mission Assurance Officer

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Keith Deweese, Guidance Navigation & Control Lead

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Jay Parker, Lead Mechanical Engineer

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Mark Fiebig, Lead Propulsion Engineer Engineer

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A look at some of the engineers working on the GPM Core spacecraft. Beth Weinstein, Carlton Peters, and Lisa Bartusek are all part of the larger integration and test team that put the spacecraft through its paces and prepares it for launch.

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Profile of Steve Nesbitt, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois and a mission scientist on GPM ground validation field campaigns. Nesbitt uses the data collected to improve the representation of cloud microphysical processes using radars, aircraft probes, and surface instrumentation in satellite precipitation algorithms to improve global precipitation estimates.

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Profile of Dalia Kirschbaum, GPM's Applications Scientist and landslide modeler.

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A Japanese H-IIA rocket with the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard, is seen launching from th Tanegashima Space Center, 1:37 PM (EST) on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, Tanegashima Space Center. The GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours.

A Japanese H-IIA rocket with the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard, is seen launching from th Tanegashima Space Center, 1:37 PM (EST) on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, Tanegashima Space Center. The GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours.

A Japanese H-IIA rocket with the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard, is seen launching from th Tanegashima Space Center, 1:37 PM (EST) on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, Tanegashima Space Center. The GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours.

A Japanese H-IIA rocket with the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard, is seen launching from th Tanegashima Space Center, 1:37 PM (EST) on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, Tanegashima Space Center. The GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours.

NASA scientists talk about the GPM mission ahead of launch.

Join NASA as we count down the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission at 12:00 PM EST, Thursday, February 27, 2014. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and it will set a new standard in measuring rain and snow around the world. As we build up to the launch from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, our NASA scientists will discuss the satellite's major innovations and the big questions GPM will set out to answer. Follow along on NASA Television (www.nasa.gov/ntv) and ask your big questions to the experts using #gpm on Twitter. GPM is scheduled to launch from Tanegashima Space Center at 1:07 PM EST on February 27, 2014. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/GPM.