Roke, a once powerful Category 4 typhoon with sustained winds estimated at 115 knots (~132 mph), came ashore in central Japan Wednesday around 2 pm local time near Hamamatsu on the southeast coast of Honshu (about 200 km southwest of Tokyo) as a Category 1 typhoon. Roke began as a tropical depression ten days ago in the central Philippine Sea about 850 miles (~1370 km) south of Japan. For over a week, the cyclone meandered south of Japan with little change in intensity. Roke finally began to intensify on the 19th of September when it became a typhoon just east of the Ryukyu Islands and then

The TRMM satellite passed over newly formed tropical storm Ophelia in the Atlantic Ocean on September 2011 at 0752 UTC ( 4:52 AM EDT). TRMM shows that Ophelia isn't very well organized and contains only a few scattered areas of heavy rainfall. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has predicted that Ophelia will remain a tropical storm with wind speeds reaching a maximum of 50 kts (~58 mph).

The TRMM satellite flew over two tropical cyclones near Japan on 18 September 2011. Typhoon Sonca, shown above, was seen off the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu at 1805 UTC while moving away from Japan toward the north-east. Sonca was still a powerful typhoon with wind speeds of about 85 knots (~98 mph) at that time but Sonca weakened to a tropical storm on 19 September 2011 while moving over the colder waters of the northern Pacific Ocean to the north-east of Japan. TRMM saw tropical storm Roke a little later at 1840 UTC. TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data shows that Roke

The TRMM satellite traveled above tropical storm Maria on Thursday 15 September 2011 at 1001 UTC ( 6:01 AM EDT). Maria's organization had improved over that seen by TRMM earlier in the week due to favorable (warmer) sea surface temperatures and lower upper level wind shear. A rainfall analysis from TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR), displayed in a lighter swath, shows that powerful convective storms were dropping rainfall at a rate of over 50mm/hr (~2 inches) northwest of Maria's center of circulation. A large area of rainfall containing bands of heavier rainfall was also shown by TRMM's