Visualizations by
Lori Perkins
Released on September 11, 2003
This animation shows TRMM's view of Typhoon Maemi. Typhoon Maemi was located approximately 400 miles south-southest of Okinawa, Japan. At the time this image was taken, Maemi was classified as a Category 5 storm under the Saffir-Simpson scale because it was packing sustained winds of 172 mph with gusts to 200 mph. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has provided some remarkable images of Super Typhoon Maemi. During the storm's most intense phase, TRMM was able to capture the evolution of Maemi's eyewall structure as it was starting to undergo a process known as 'eyewall replacement,' whereby two concentric eyewalls are present before the outer eyewall collapses down to replace the original inner eyewall. This process can occur in very intense typhoons and hurricanes.
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0