PPS is releasing version 3.80.29 build of the PPS TKIO toolkit for GPM Version 5 products and TRMM Version 8 data products This can be found at: ftp://gpmweb2.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/pub/PPStoolkit/GPM/tkio-3.80.29/ The direct link to the tar file can be accessed here: ftp://gpmweb2.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/pub/PPStoolkit/GPM/tkio-3.80.29/tkio-… The most recent changes are in metadata: 3GSLHT cu3cw 3HSLHT cu3cw Other changes are noted in the release notes documents in the FTP directory. Please contact us for any questions.

PPS will start the TRMM version 8 level 1 processing on Monday October 2, 2017. All products will be produced as GPM version V05. All the TRMM products are in HDF5 format with internal compression (same as the current GPM products), and will be produced using the PPS Toolkit (TKIO) version 3.80.29. The TRMM product names will be changing using the GPM naming conventions. The GPM naming convention document can be found at: https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/Documents/FileNamingConventionForPrecipitatio…. TRMM version 8 level 1 products have new identifiers, 1ATMI, 1BTMI, 1AVIRS

On September 26 at about 14:45 UTC the GPM radar was commanded to undertake an experimental Ka scanning approach. As the radar is not in normal observational mode no normal observational data is being generated from either the Ku or the Ka radar. This situation will continue until approximately 14:40 UTC on 29 September 2017 when the radar will be commanded back to its observational scanning approach.

Hurricane Maria has significantly weakened from the powerful category four hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico. The GPM core observatory satellite flew over Maria on September 25, 2017 at 9:28 PM EDT (September 26, 2017 at 0128 UTC). This informative GPM pass showed that the western side of the hurricane was drier and contained much less precipitation than the eastern side. GPM's Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) scanned directly through the center of Maria's eye and showed that there were only light to moderate rain showers around the hurricane's center. DPR found a few convective