Tropical Cyclones

After striking the northeast coast of Nicaragua as a powerful Category 4 storm back on November 3, Hurricane Eta weakened rapidly over Central America but still brought major flooding and triggered numerous landslides that so far have resulted in at least 250 fatalities across the region, according to media reports. Eta was down to a tropical depression when the center re-emerged over the northwestern Caribbean on the evening of November 5. An upper-level trough over the Gulf of Mexico first steered Eta northeastward towards Cuba on the 6th. Because it was disorganized after its trek across

The extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, aided by the ongoing La Niña, continues on. After Hurricane Zeta made landfall along the northern part of the Gulf Coast, yet another hurricane has arisen - Hurricane Eta, the strongest of the season. Like Zeta, Eta also formed in the Caribbean, where sea surface temperatures are still running quite warm at around 29° C, almost a full degree above average and well above the typical 26° C needed for tropical cyclone development. But while Zeta turned north into the Gulf of Mexico, Eta moved westward where it delivered powerful winds and

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite flew over Hurricane Eta at 11:41 p.m. CT on Tuesday, Nov. 3 (0541 UTC Wednesday, Nov. 4). GPM observed the storm’s rainfall with its two unique science instruments: the GPM Microwave Imager ( GMI) and Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar ( DPR). As the visualization shows, the instruments observed a large swath of heavy precipitation extending to the north and east of the hurricane’s center, which matched earlier forecasts that called for particularly heavy rainfall across the storm’s path. These two- and three-dimensional

As Hurricane Zeta moves towards landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast, NASA has eyes on the storm with an array of Earth-observing instruments and stands ready to aid affected communities with critical data and analysis. Zeta is following a path similar to Hurricane Delta, which after crossing the Yucatan Peninsula made its way across the Gulf of Mexico and struck the Louisiana coast as a Category 2 hurricane on October 9. If Zeta makes landfall as expected along the northern Gulf Coast, it will become the 7th named storm to do so in this record-breaking season, following Tropical Storm Cristobal

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season will go down as one of the most active seasons on record, currently second only to the incredible 2005 season in terms of the number of named storms. The 2020 season is only the second time in recorded history (the other being 2005) that the Greek alphabet has been used because the number of named storms has exceeded the number of regular names on the list. Another interesting aspect of the 2020 season has been the number of storms that have struck the northern Gulf Coast. So it is no surprise that the latest storm, Hurricane Delta, would also find its way to

The northern Gulf Coast has seen its share of storms this busy hurricane season. At the end of August, then Tropical Storm Marco brought heavy rains to parts of the Florida Panhandle while western Louisiana took a direct hit from the much more powerful Category 4 Hurricane Laura. Now, just over 3 weeks since Laura made landfall, the northern Gulf Coast was struck again, this time by Hurricane Sally. Though not as powerful as Laura, the still rather strong Sally behaved more like Marco. But, while Marco was largely sheared apart with most of the rain well northeast of the center as it slowed

From August 22 through September 7, 2020, NASA’s IMERG algorithm estimated rainfall from three typhoons as they passed over the Pacific Ocean, Japan, and Korea. According to NOAA's records, this was the only time since records have been kept starting in 1945 that the Korean peninsula saw three landfalling typhoons in a single year, let alone in two weeks. Each of the three typhoons--Bavi, Maysak, and Haishen--reached the equivalent of “major hurricane” status, meaning Category 3 or above on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane-intensity scale (shown here as a red in the hurricane track) along their

The northern Gulf Coast, specifically Louisiana, saw two tropical cyclones make landfall in the same week just days apart. The two systems, however, could not have been more different when they arrived. Despite forming a day later, Marco was the first system to make landfall on the Gulf Coast. Marco originated from a tropical easterly wave that was moving from the central to the western Caribbean. After becoming a tropical depression (TD) on the 20th of August, TD #14 turned northwestward the following day as it approached the coast of Central America and moved into the northwest Caribbean

After crossing western Cuba, Tropical Storm Laura emerged into the Gulf of Mexico where warm water, low wind shear and a moist environment made conditions ideal for intensification. As it made its way through the Gulf of Mexico Laura strengthened - from a category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 75 mph on the morning of Tuesday August 25th, to a powerful category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 150 mph on the evening of Wednesday August 26th - an increase of 75 mph in just 36 hours. At this point Laura was nearing the coast of western Louisiana, and made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana

Update on August 28, 2020: During its approach to Louisiana, Hurricane Laura dramatically intensified from Category 2 to 4 (105 mph to 150 mph) between at 1AM and 7PM Central Time (CDT) on August 26, 2020. In the updated movie below, the precipitation falling from Laura is shown through 10:30PM CDT, August 27, as estimated by NASA's IMERG algorithm. To open the animation in a separate window, click here. On August 26, Laura became the first North Atlantic hurricane to reach "major hurricane" status this year, meaning that it reached category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane-intensity scale