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).

On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Building 29 clean room which houses the GPM spacecraft. The following day, the team carefully inspected the I&T area and spacecraft. There was no visible damage or debris, and post-earthquake inspections identified no problems.

Hurricane Irene was seen affecting the Bahamas twice during the daytime by the TRMM satellite on Thursday 25 August 2011 at 1624 UTC ( 12:24 PM EDT) and at 2118 UTC ( 5:17 PM EDT). A rainfall analysis from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) data shows that Irene's eye had moved to the north of the islands of the Bahamas by the second pass. TRMM' Precipitation Radar (PR) data shows that at this time Irene contained bands of intense thunderstorms dropping rain at the rate of over 50 mm/hr (~2 inches) north of the hurricane's eye. Irene weakened slightly today (Friday) from a category 3 to a strong

After becoming a small hurricane while passing over Puerto Rico, Irene re-emerged over the warm, open waters of the western Atlantic northwest of the Dominican Republic on the morning of August 22nd. The storm quickly showed signs of intensifying as deep convective towers arose near the center of Irene, releasing heat into the core of the system. In response, Irene's central pressure fell and winds intensified, making it a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale with sustained winds reported at 85 knots (~100 mph) by the National Hurricane Center by the end of the day

It's been a busy season so far in terms of tropical storms with seven named storms already in the Atlantic basin; however, none of them have had a very large impact as they have either been small, short-lived or remained at sea and none of them have intensified into a hurricane until now. Irene, which originated from a tropical wave that propagated off the west coast of Africa, became the 8th named storm of the season as it approached the Lesser Antilles on the 20th of August and the first hurricane of the season as it was passing over Puerto Rico on the morning of the 22nd. Now back over open