Earth  ID: 3557

Hurricane Ike Slams Cuba on September 8, 2008

Visualizations by Lori Perkins Released on September 8, 2008
NASA's TRMM spacecraft observed this view of Hurricane Ike on September 8, 2008 as slammed into Cuba . At this time the storm had weakened to a category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 85 knots (98 mph) and a pressure reading of 960 millibars. Hurricane-force winds were extending outward 60 miles from the center, while tropical storm-force winds extended up to 200 miles from the center. The cloud cover in this animation is taken by TRMM's Visible and Infrared Scanner(VIRS) and the GOES spacecraft. The rain structure is taken by TRMM's Tropical Microwave Imager (TMI) and TRMM's Precitation Radar(PR) instruments. TRMM looks underneath of the storm's clouds to reveal the underlying rain structure. Blue represents areas with at least 0.25 inches of rain per hour. Green shows at least 0.5 inches of rain per hour. Yellow is at least 1.0 inches of rain and red is at least 1.5 inches of rain per hour.
Download Options
Hurricane Ike slams into Cuba at 7:04 EDT on September 8, 2008.
Download Options
This image shows the rain structure of the hurricane at this time. Rain is the fuel that powers the storm. The blue region represents areas where the storm is dumping at least 0.25 inches of rain per hour. Green is 0.5 inches of rain per hour, yellow is 1.0 inches of rain and red is 1.5 inches of rain per hour.
Download Options
Here is the same image with the cloud cover overlaid.
Download Options
Hurricane-force winds were extending outward 45 miles from the center, while tropical storm-force winds extended up to 140 miles from the center.

Visualization Credits

Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Scott Braun (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3557

Mission:
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission - TRMM

Data Used:
TRMM/VIRS
2008/09/08
view all stories where this data set is used
TRMM/TMI
2008/09/08
view all stories where this data set is used
TRMM/PR
2008/09/08
view all stories where this data set is used
GOES
2008/09/08
view all stories where this data set is used
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of these series:
Hurricanes
TRMM 3D Hurricanes

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
DLESE >> Natural hazards
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Atmospheric Phenomena >> Hurricanes
SVS >> GOES
NASA Science >> Earth

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