NASA analyzed Tropical Cyclone Alcide's rainfall before dissipation

NASA analyzed Tropical Cyclone Alcide's rainfall before dissipation

6 years ago
Anonymous $L9wC17otzH

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-nasa-tropical-cyclone-alcide-rainfall.html

The GPM core observatory satellite, a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, had an excellent view of tropical cyclone Alcide on November 8, 2018 at 10:59 a.m. EDT (1559 UTC) after it had moved to a location northeast of Madagascar. At that time Alcide had reached its peak intensity with winds of about 95 knots (109 mph) making it the equivalent of a strong category two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.

Data collected by GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) and GPM's Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) instruments revealed that the powerful tropical cyclone was producing extremely heavy rainfall. GPM's radar (DPR Ku Band) indicated that tall convective storms in the northwestern side of Alcide's eyewall were dropping rain at a rate of more than 255 mm (10 inches) per hour.