Hurricanes

While the GPM Core Observatory’s instruments show exceptional detail in Milton’s rainfall structure in several overpasses throughout the week, the IMERG global multi-satellite product provides a broader overview of precipitation along Milton’s track as a continuous picture from development through landfall. Download this video (right-click -> "save as") The above animation shows IMERG precipitation rates (in blue/yellow shading) and accumulations (in green/purple shading) from Oct. 5-10, 2024. Cloudiness is shown in shades of white/gray using infrared geosynchronous satellite data. While

Updated: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 Hurricane Francine made landfall on Wednesday, September 11, at 5:00 p.m. CDT on the southern coast of Louisiana, approximately 30 miles south-southwest of Morgan City. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) classified it as a Category 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds estimated at 100 mph. Francine originated from a westward-moving tropical wave of low pressure, known as an African easterly wave. This wave, as is typical, emerged off the west coast of Africa before traversing the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean. These waves often serve as seedlings for

After rapidly intensifying overnight, Hurricane Otis made landfall near Acapulco, Mexico around 1:25 a.m. CDT (06:25 UTC) on Wednesday Oct. 25 as a powerful Category 5 hurricane. Otis had maximum sustained winds estimated at 165 mph by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), making it the first Category 5 as well as the most powerful storm to hit the Pacific coast of Mexico on record. Otis formed into a tropical depression (TD 18-E) on the morning of Sunday Oct. 22 about 530 miles (850 km) south-southeast of Acapulco from a broad area of low pressure. The depression was moving slowly northward

After threatening much of Florida’s western coast, Hurricane Idalia made landfall Wednesday morning in the Big Bend region of Florida’s northwest coast near Keaton Beach at 7:45 a.m. EDT, Aug. 30, as a strong Category 3 storm with sustained winds reported at 125 mph by the National Hurricane Center. Idalia’s formation was somewhat unusual. Typically, when entering the heart of the hurricane season tropical storms and hurricanes form and expand eastward across the tropical Atlantic region towards Africa’s coast. However, storms occasionally still form in the western Caribbean, as was the case

After becoming a tropical storm in the east-central Caribbean on the afternoon of Aug. 20 and moving generally westward for two days, Tropical Storm Franklin took a northward track and struck the southern coast of the Dominican Republic south of Barahona on the morning of Aug. 23 as a moderate tropical storm with sustained winds reported at 50 mph by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Franklin brought heavy rains and flooding to the area, resulting in landslides, power outages and at least 2 fatalities in the Dominican Republic according to media reports. After traversing the mountainous

Hurricane Hilary is being hailed as a historic storm after becoming the first tropical storm to hit California since Sept. 24, 1939. The storm has had a large impact on the region - in addition to gusty winds, Hilary’s rains have resulted in widespread flooding, landslides, washed out roads and numerous other closures. Like most East Pacific tropical cyclones, Hilary originated from a westward propagating tropical wave that crossed over Central America from the western Caribbean into the eastern Pacific. Known as “African easterly waves”, these are the same waves that emerge off the coast of

After a quiet start, the 2023 eastern Pacific hurricane season recently picked up in activity with the formation of the season’s first major hurricane, Hurricane Calvin. Calvin originated on July 11 from an area of low pressure located about 510 miles (~820 km) south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, which had become organized enough for the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to declare it Tropical Depression 3E (TD 3E) that afternoon. Located over warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of around 84 oF (29 oC), thunderstorm activity near the center of TD 3E continued to increase overnight, and

On Sept. 30, 2022, Hurricane Ian was approaching South Carolina, which was one day after Ian finished its west-to-east crossing of Florida. NASA has been estimating Hurricane Ian's precipitation over land and ocean, which complements the array of detailed observations collected by NOAA and other agencies of Ian's impact over land.

Hurricane Ian became one of the strongest hurricanes on record to strike Florida when it made landfall Wednesday, Sept. 28th, 2022, around 3:10 pm (EDT) as a Category 4 storm near Cayo Costa, FL, about 20 miles west-southwest of Punta Gorda on Florida’s southwest coast. This same area was hit hard by Hurricane Charley in 2004, which also made landfall as a strong Category 4 storm. Both storms passed over and were intensified by the deep, warm waters of the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. Ian originated from a tropical easterly wave that propagated westward off the coast of Africa across the

Hurricane Ian formed in the Caribbean Sea on Sept. 26, 2022. Ian intensified to Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale by the time it made landfall in western Cuba early the next day. NASA's near real-time IMERG algorithm was used to estimate the precipitation from Ian during its formation and intensification. IMERG shows that Ian's largest rainfall accumulation so far, over 12 inches, occurred while it was only a tropical storm and not yet a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center provided an estimate of the distance that tropical storm-force winds extended from Ian's low-pressure