Freda Brings Heavy Rains to New Caledonia
After forming just south of the Solomon Islands on the evening of December 28th (local time), Cyclone Freda moved southward and intensified, becoming a strong Category 3 cyclone on the 30th. As the storm continued to move south, it weakened significantly and approached the island of New Caledonia on the 2nd of January 2013 as a tropical storm. TRMM captured this image of Freda at 07:16 UTC (6:16 pm local time) 2 January 2013. The image shows an instantaneous snap shot of the rain intensities within Freda. Rain intensities in the center of the swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR)