When Typhoon Sinlaku struck the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, it disabled ground-based weather radars and rain gauges – the very tools designed to track the storm. As part of the coordinated U.S. response to Sinlaku, the NASA Disasters Program shared IMERG satellite-based observations of rainfall, filling a critical data gap and giving responders a clearer view of the storm’s impacts.

In April 2026, Typhoon Sinlaku impacted the Pacific Islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. As the storm approached the islands and made landfall, NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM) satellite and multi-satellite data-processing algorithms gave insights into the rain that fell from this powerful storm. Now, learn how GPM helps us go beyond individual snapshots of surface rainfall by observing Typhoon Sinlaku over time and through the depth of Earth's atmosphere. The Time Dimension Because of technological limitations, satellite instruments that see into a storm don't hover over

The GPM Core Observatory flew over the center of Super Typhoon Sinlaku at 12:08 UTC (10:08 pm LST) April 12th, providing a detailed look into the structure and intensity of the precipitation within Sinlaku.