This visualization begins with an overview of the United States showing the clouds and rainfall accumulation of the massive rain event over Louisiana beginning on August 11th, 2016 through August 13th, 2016. The camera then begins to zoom in as time resets to August 11th. Time then slows way down on August 12th to show the first of GPM's passes. In this close up of GPM's volumetric DPR data over Louisiana, a cutting plane materializes into view to show the inner structure of this giant storm system. From this view, one can clearly see the heavy amounts of rain in the center of the storm (depicted in yellow, orange, and red). The GPM data then dissolves away as time speeds up before slowing down again later on that same day. This time GPM captures a much larger swath of the storm. Dissolving in the cutting plane again reveals huge amounts of rainfall at this later time. As the GPM data dissolves away again, time speeds back up to show the rest of the rainfall accumulation partway through August 13. At this time, a large portion of Louisiana can be seen completely saturated with rainfall accumulations (depicted in shades of orange to red).

Download this video in high resolution from the NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio.