Tropical storm Talas was seen by the TRMM satellite approaching the main islands of Japan on 1 September 2011 at 0416UTC (~1:15 PM local time). This daylight TRMM pass shows that Talas had a very large nearly clear eye with large bands of intense thunderstorms located far from the storm's center. Talas is predicted travel over the main islands of japan in the next 36 hours.

While parts of the East Coast and New England are still recovering from Hurricane Irene, a new storm is brewing in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Katia. Katia began as an area of low pressure that had moved away from the coast of Africa south of the Cape Verde Islands in the central eastern Atlantic. This area of low pressure became the twelfth tropical depression of the season (TD #12) early on the morning of August 29th about 640 km (~400 miles) south-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands and about 1400 km (~870 miles) off the coast of Africa. Storms forming in this region are known as "Cape

The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center monitors rainfall over the global tropics. The analysis above shows MPA rainfall totals for the period from 20-29 August 2011. Hurricane Irene was dropping tremendous amounts of rainfall over the eastern United States during a part of this period and caused flooding from the Carolinas to the northeastern states. The heaviest rainfall totals of over 225 mm (~8.9 inches) were located in North Carolina where Irene first made landfall in the United States. Very heavy rainfall

The TRMM satellite had another very good daytime view of hurricane Irene on 27 August 2011 1750 UTC (1:50 PM EDT). The rainfall analysis shown on the right was derived from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data. It clearly shows the location of Irene's eye and the intense rainfall falling over Cape Hatteras east of the eye. Click here to see this image in Google Earth (kml).

The TRMM satellite saw hurricane Irene again on 26 August 2011 at 2023 UTC (4:23 PM EDT) when winds had weakened to about 85 kts (~98mph). This TRMM pass showed no clear eye but bands of heavy rainfall north of the center. Irene was predicted by the NHC to weaken a little more before coming ashore in North Carolina. See the 26 August 2011 2023 UTC image in Google Earth (kml).