Extreme Weather News

Tropical cyclone 05S formed today in the South Indian Ocean well to the northeast of the islands of Reunion and Mauritius. The GPM core observatory satellite had a perfect view of 05S when the satellite flew over on December 9, 2015 at 1416 UTC. At that time the forming tropical cyclone had sustained winds estimated at 35 kts (40 mph). GPM found that 05S was dropping rain at a rate of over 77 mm (~ 3 inches) per hour in strong convective storms near the tropical cyclone's center of circulation. GPM also saw intense rainfall in a strong feeder band that was converging into the storm's

During the past week moisture from the tropics has been pumped into the Pacific Northwest by the "Pineapple Express". Resulting extreme rainfall has led to widespread flooding and landslides. The continued "training" of rainfall into the area has caused flooding in the Portland, Oregon area with at least one death reported. Western Washington is also on flood alert due to the deluge. Rainfall that occurred during the past week (December 2-9, 2015) was measured with data from NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG). IMERG found that many areas from northern California

In addition to destructive winds measured at 81 mph (70 kts) a powerful winter storm called Desmond dropped record rainfall in northwest England over the past weekend. Desmond's unusually heavy rainfall resulted in wide spread damaging floods. Data from NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) were used to estimate rainfall for the period from November 30 to December 7, 2015. This analysis found that some rainfall near the Irish Sea measured over 392 mm (~15.4 inches) during this period. As much as 304 mm (~12 inches) of rain were reported to have fallen in only 24 hours

Data from the Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM mission core satellite were used to help estimate rainfall data. GPM is a satellite co-managed by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The city of Chennai on India's southeastern coast was hit particularly hard. More than 260 deaths have been reported in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Data from NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) were used to estimate the flooding rainfall that fell from November 28 to Dec. 4, 2015. Over 400 mm (15.7 inches) of rainfall were estimated over areas south of Chennai

Extremely heavy rainfall over southeastern India caused deadly flooding in the middle of the month of November. Record setting rainfall has again caused deadly flooding in southern India. The latest deluge started at the end of November 2015 and generated flooding that has resulted in the reported deaths of 188 people. NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) combines all data from 12 satellites into a continuously updated global map of rainfall at half hourly intervals. The rainfall accumulation analysis above was computed from data generated by IMERG during the period