Extreme Weather News

Heavy rainfall, flooding and tornado outbreaks affected areas of the United States from the Southwest through the Midwest from December 23-27, 2015. Tornadoes and flooding events killed at least 43 people during this period. Fourteen deaths alone occurred with tornadoes that hit Benton, Mississippi on December 23, 2015. Tornadoes are expected in the springtime but are much less frequent during this time of the year. An analysis was made of the rainfall that occurred during the period from December 21-28, 2015. This analysis used data generated by NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals

Since landfall typhoon Melor has destroyed thousands of homes and caused the deaths of at least six people in the Philippines. Melor had hurricane force during most of the time it spent moving through the central Philippines and weakened to tropical storm intensity only after moving into the South China west of the Luzon. Heavy rainfall from the typhoon also caused some flooding along it's path. An analysis of typhoon Melor's rainfall was made using data from NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG). Total rainfall in the area of typhoon Melor from December 12-16, 2015 is

Super typhoon Melor (known in the Philippines as Nona) formed east of the Philippines on December 12, 2015. Melor became more powerful and became a typhoon the next day while heading toward the Philippines. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) indicated that Melor was a super typhoon with winds of 115 kts 115 kts (133 mph) just before hitting the Philippines .The GPM core observatory satellite passed above as super typhoon Melor was impacting the Philippines on December 14, 2015 at 1006 UTC. At that time Melor still had maximum sustained winds of about 115 kts (133 mph). Rainfall derived

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