Iselle was once a rather powerful category 4 hurricane in the East Pacific with sustained winds estimated at 120 knots (~138 mph) by the National Hurricane Center. Fortunately, a combination of southwesterly wind shear, drier air and cooler waters weakened Iselle considerably as it approached the Hawaiian Islands. Although much weaker, Iselle still struck the southeast Kau coast of the Big Island of Hawaii as a rather strong tropical storm. In fact Iselle, was the strongest and only the 2nd tropical storm to hit the Big Island in over 50 years. The center made landfall around 2:30 am HST

Since December 1997, TRMM and the instruments it carries have provided valuable information to researchers, the applications community, and the public. On July 8, 2014, pressure readings from the fuel tank indicated that TRMM is at the end of its fuel. As a result, NASA has ceased station keeping maneuvers and TRMM has begun its drift downward from its operating altitude of 402 km. A small amount of fuel has been retained to conduct debris avoidance maneuvers to ensure the satellite remains safe during the drift down. TRMM observations will continue as the spacecraft descends to 335 km, at