Hurricanes

After leaving the Caribbean, Hurricane Fiona became both the strongest and the first major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season as it made its way northward through the western Atlantic. Fiona began as an African easterly wave that moved across the tropical Atlantic in the direction of the Caribbean. While still about 800 miles east of the Leeward Isles, this wave organized into a tropical depression on Sept.14th. Later that same day, the depression strengthened and became Tropical Storm Fiona. Fiona remained a moderate tropical storm as it passed through the Leeward Isles on the

From late Sept. through early Oct. 2021, two powerful storms churned over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans: Typhoon Mindulle, which peaked as a Category 5 storm, and Hurricane Sam, a Category 4 hurricane and one of the longest-lived hurricane-strength storms on record over the Atlantic Ocean. While neither storm posed a direct threat to land, Mindulle brushed by eastern Japan, leaving heavy rainfall accumulations in the area near Tokyo. Despite the fact that neither storm made landfall, the storms’ slow-motion tracks across warm ocean waters allows an opportunity to observe how the strong winds

Although it only reached hurricane status for a brief period, Hurricane Nicholas made an impact on the northern Gulf Coast by bringing heavy rains to an area still recovering from the devastating effects of powerful Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana just over 2 weeks earlier. Nicholas formed after a tropical wave passed over the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Bay of Campeche, providing a focus for shower and thunderstorm development. On the morning of Sunday September 12th, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) found that this area of storms had developed a closed circulation with

All eyes were on Hurricane Ida as it made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2021, but many people were taken by surprise by the power of Hurricane Ida's remnants when they reached Virginia during the day on Sept.1 and New York City late at night on Sept. 1 into early morning on Sept. 2. The below animation shows the precipitation that fell during the entire lifecycle of Ida from before landfall in Louisiana through the impacts on New York City. Download this video (right-click -> "Save As") This animation uses data from the near real-time version of NASA's IMERG algorithm, a data product that

Hurricane Ida struck southeast Louisiana as a powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021 - the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in 2005. Ida brought destructive storm surge, high winds, and heavy rainfall to the region, and left over 1 million homes and businesses without power, including the entire city of New Orleans. The NASA / JAXA GPM Core Observatory satellite flew over the eye of Ida shortly before landfall at 10:13 a.m. CDT (1513 UTC), capturing data on the structure and intensity of precipitation within the storm. This animation shows NASA's IMERG multi

Forecasters predicted an above-normal hurricane season for 2020. They weren’t wrong. As the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season smashed records with an unprecedented 30 named storms, NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Disasters Program stood up to the challenge. The Disasters Program helps leaders and responders at national, regional, and local levels leverage NASA’s technology and expertise to assess, predict, and understand disasters' impacts. The Disasters Program targets a wide range of hazards and disasters, and while NASA is not an operational response agency, the agency offers access to unique

The record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, aided by the ongoing La Niña, is officially the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, surpassing the 2005 season in the total number of named storms with 30 to date. Incredibly, the latest storm Iota wasn’t just another named storm, but a powerful Category 5 hurricane and the strongest storm of the season. It was also only the 2 nd Category 5 storm to occur in the month of November on record, the other being in 1932. The warm waters of the Caribbean continue to serve as a breeding ground for late-season storms this season. Iota

After a long and meandering journey over Central America, across central Cuba, and through the Florida Keys, Eta, the 28th named storm and 12th hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, wound up nearly stationary as a moderate tropical storm in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico just north of the western tip of Cuba on the morning of November 10th. Before long however, a deep layer trough located over the western third of the US began to shift eastward, and by the afternoon of the 10th, it started to pull Eta back towards the north and the west coast of the Florida peninsula. As it did so

After striking the northeast coast of Nicaragua as a powerful Category 4 storm back on November 3, Hurricane Eta weakened rapidly over Central America but still brought major flooding and triggered numerous landslides that so far have resulted in at least 250 fatalities across the region, according to media reports. Eta was down to a tropical depression when the center re-emerged over the northwestern Caribbean on the evening of November 5. An upper-level trough over the Gulf of Mexico first steered Eta northeastward towards Cuba on the 6th. Because it was disorganized after its trek across

The extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, aided by the ongoing La Niña, continues on. After Hurricane Zeta made landfall along the northern part of the Gulf Coast, yet another hurricane has arisen - Hurricane Eta, the strongest of the season. Like Zeta, Eta also formed in the Caribbean, where sea surface temperatures are still running quite warm at around 29° C, almost a full degree above average and well above the typical 26° C needed for tropical cyclone development. But while Zeta turned north into the Gulf of Mexico, Eta moved westward where it delivered powerful winds and