NASA Aqua MODIS Tracking Super Typhoon Vongfong

Super Typhoon Vongfong pictured from the ISS by NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman.

The MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible image of Super Typhoon Vongfong on Oct. 9 at 04:25 UTC (12:25 a.m. EDT as it moved north through the Philippine Sea. 

Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Super Typhoon Vongfong as it tracked through the Philippine Sea on Oct. 9.

The MODIS instrument aboard Aqua captured visible and infrared images of the now Category 4 Super Typhoon.

Two instruments aboard NASA's Aqua satellite provided visible and infrared data on the Super Typhoon: The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument, respectively.

MODIS captured a visible image of Super Typhoon Vongfong on Oct. 9 at 04:25 UTC (12:25 a.m. EDT) that showed two concentric eyewalls with the inner eye diameter at 26 nautical miles.

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that the eye remains symmetrical with sharp outlines - typical of very intense cyclones.

The AIRS data showed the overall cloud top temperatures had warmed a little since yesterday, Oct. 8, indicating that the uplift in the storm may be weakening.

AIRS also showed a thick band of powerful thunderstorms surrounded Vongfong's eye.

Vongfong weakened to a Category 4 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson scale on Thursday, October 9, with maximum sustained winds near 130 knots (149.6 mph/240.8 kph), down from a Category 5 typhoon on Oct. 8.

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center predict slow weakening over the next several days.

A colorised satellite photo shows Super Typhoon Vongfong spinning in the western Pacific Ocean.

Credit Photo: NASA /NOAA /CIRA /RAMMB

Vongfong was centered near 20.6 north and 129.5 east, about 384 nautical miles south-southeast of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

It is moving to the north-northwest at 7 knots (8 mph/12.9 kph) and generating 44 foot (13.4 meter) high seas. For warnings and watches, visit the Japan Meteorological Agency website.

Vongfong is forecast to continue moving north through the Philippine Sea and is expected to pass just to the east of Kadena Air Base, then track over Amami Oshima before making landfall in Kyushu and moving over the other three big islands of Japan.

Residents of all of these islands should prepare for typhoon conditions beginning on October 10.

The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on Super Typhoon Vongfong and showed powerful thunderstorms (purple) circled the center in a wide band on Oct. 9, 2014. 

Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

MODIS Witnesses Deforestation in Borneo: Agricultural fires rage

The skies over Indonesian Borneo is filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set deliberately to clear indigenous forest areas for subsistence farmland and illegal logging. 

A shroud of thick, gray smoke hangs over the area when the Aqua satellite captured this image on Sept. 25, 2014. 

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires (locations outlined in red) across the entire region from Central Borneo to South Borneo and even on East Laut Island. 

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team.

The skies over Indonesian Borneo are filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set deliberately to clear indigenous forest areas for subsistence farmland and illegal logging.

A shroud of thick, gray smoke hung over the area when the Aqua satellite captured this image on September 25, 2014.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires (locations outlined in red) across the entire region from Central Borneo to South Borneo and even on East Laut Island.

Widespread burning in lowland forests on Borneo is an annual, man-made occurrence.

People use fires to manage and create agricultural lands, including large palm tree plantations that supply palm oil for biodiesel fuel; others are set accidentally during illegal exploitation and logging.

Lowland tropical forests are underlain by a swampy layer of peat that can be up to 20 meters (66 feet) thick.

During the rainy season, when the peat is waterlogged, leaves and other organic matter in the soil don't decay; when the peat dries out, it becomes flammable.

Burning peat generates huge amounts of smoke as is evident in this satellite image. These fires contribute significantly to annual greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials.

All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter (PM or soot).

Smoke can contain many different chemicals, including aldehydes, acid gases, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, toluene, styrene, metals and dioxins.

Human's exposure to adverse air quality and smoke should be limited as it can cause severe respiratory ailments.

NASA TRMM: Tropical Storm Kammuri's spiral bands of soaking thunderstorms

NASA TRMM satellite flew over the northern half of Tropical Storm Kammuri on Sept. 26 at 1:44 a.m. EDT and saw a strong band of thunderstorms dropping rainfall over 1.2 inches per hour (red). 

Credit: NRL /NASA /JAXA

Tropical Storm Kammuri continues to strengthen on its north-northwestern track through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean and NASA TRMM satellite identified a band of thunderstorms containing heavy rainfall northwest of the storm's center.

Meanwhile NASA's Aqua satellite got a look at the entire storm and saw that those bands of storms circled the entire storm.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over the northern half of Tropical Storm Kammuri on Sept. 26 at 1:44 a.m. EDT and the Precipitation Radar instrument saw a strong band of thunderstorms dropping rainfall over 1.2 inches (30.4 mm) per hour.

The TRMM satellite is managed by both NASA and JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on Tropical Storm Kammuri on Sept. 26 at 03:11 UTC (Sept. 25 at 11:11 p.m. EDT) and saw strong bands of towering thunderstorms with cold cloud temperatures around the entire storm.

Cloud top temperatures exceeded -63F/-53C indicating they extended high into the troposphere and had the potential to generate heavy rainfall, such as what the TRMM satellite observed.

Animated enhanced infrared satellite imagery also showed that the low-level circulation center is consolidating as the bands of thunderstorms spiraled into the rounded center.

On Sept. 26 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Tropical Storm Kammuri had maximum sustained winds near 55 knots (63 mph/102 kph). It was centered near 23.5 north latitude and 145.3 east longitude, about 252 nautical miles (290 miles/466.7 km) east-southeast of the island of Iwo To, Japan.

Kammuri is moving to the north-northwest at 10 knots (11.5 mph/18.5 kph).

Kammuri is still forecast to intensify as it moves in a north-northwesterly direction through warm sea surface temperatures, toward the island of Iwo To.

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Kammuri to be typhoon strength as it passes east of the island of Iwo To on Sept. 27 and begin weakening on Sept. 29 while curving to the northeast staying from the big island of Japan.


The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on Tropical Storm Kammuri on Sept. 26 at 03:11 UTC and saw strong bands of towering thunderstorms with cold cloud temperatures (purple) around the entire storm. 

Credit: Image Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

NASA Earth Observation GOES: Hurricane Iselle threatens Hawaii

Hurricane Iselle is pictured in the Eastern Pacific Ocean on August 3, 2014

Hurricane Iselle picked up strength in the open Pacific on Monday as the powerful storm barrelled toward Hawaii, US forecasters said.

The NOAA Miami-based National Hurricane Centre upgraded Iselle, now some 1,245 miles (2,005 kilometers) east of Hilo, Hawaii, to a Category Four storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale.

Earlier Monday, it had been listed as a Category Three storm.

NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured this image of a very active Eastern and Central Pacific, hosting three tropical cyclones (from left to right) Genevieve, Iselle and Julio.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

NASA and NOAA satellites have been supplying forecasters with data developing tropical cyclones in the Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean and over the last several days. There have been as many as five tropical systems at the same time.

On Monday, August 4, there were three tropical systems stretching from west to east: Tropical Depression Genevieve in the Central Pacific, Hurricane Iselle and Tropical Storm Julio in the Eastern Pacific.

This false-colored image represents infrared data on Tropical Storm Iselle on July 31 at 5:23 p.m. EDT from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite.

Image Credit: NASA JPL

Tropical Depression Genevieve Strengthens
On August 4, Tropical Depression Genevieve was located about 930 miles (1,495 km) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Maximum sustained winds were still near 35 mph (55 kph).

Genevieve was moving westward at about 16 mph (26 kph). NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center forecasts gradual strengthening late on August 4 and 5, so Genevieve could once again reach tropical storm status.

To the east of Genevieve lies low pressure area known as System 93C. It is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms.

System 93C is located about 500 miles south of Hilo, Hawaii. This low pressure area is moving to the west at 15 mph and currently has a near zero percent chance of becoming a tropical depression over the next couple of days.

Volcanic Plume Over Southern Atlantic Ocean Revealed Through False-Colour Imagery

Image Credit: Jeff Schmaltz /MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

The South Sandwich Islands, in the far southern Atlantic Ocean, are often shrouded with thick cloud, making it difficult to view the region from space.

Sometimes, however, the use of false-colour imagery can be used to reveal events that would otherwise be obscured under cloud cover.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over the South Sandwich Islands on April 19, 2014 and acquired this false-colour image of the cloudy scene.

This false-colour image uses a combination of non-visible (middle infrared and infrared) and visible (red) light captured in bands 7, 2, and 1, respectively, to distinguish clouds from snow and ice.

Here the ice-covered islands appear bright turquoise, the clouds light turquoise and the water in the ocean appears deep black.

Because the volcanic plume is a moist mixture of gas and ash, it reflects all three forms of light relatively well, so it appears nearly white.

In the north of this image, a thin plume of white rises from the volcano on Zavodovski island, the northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands and streams to the northeast.

Further south, a wider white plume can be seen blowing across the Atlantic Ocean.

This plume rises from the Mount Michael volcano, which is a young and frequently active stratovolcano located on Saunders Island, near the center of the South Sandwich Island chain.

The white plume from Mount Michael forms a chain of swirling eddies as it blows to the northeast.

To the south, similar eddies can be seen behind three other islands. These are known as Von Kármán vortices.

These vortices can form nearly anywhere that fluid flow is disturbed by an object. Because the atmosphere behaves like a fluid, when streaming air hits a blunt object, such as a mountain peak, the wind is forced around the object.

The disturbance in the flow of the wind propagates downstream in a double row of vortices that alternate their direction of rotation, much like the eddies seen behind a pier in a river as water rushes past.

NOAA GOES-East Image: Captures weather system that spawned tornadoes

This NOAA GOES-East satellite image from Monday, Apr. 28, 2014 at 13:01 UTC/9:01 a.m. EDT shows the same storm system that generated the severe weather outbreak yesterday, has moved to the east. 

Credit: NASA /NOAA GOES Project

NASA has just released an animation of visible and infrared satellite data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite that shows the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting seven central and southern U.S. states on April 27-28, 2014.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on the system that revealed powerful storms, high into the troposphere.

This storm system generated reports of tornadoes from Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Coupled with local weather observations, soundings, and computer models, data from satellites like NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-East or GOES-13) gives forecasters information about developing weather situations.

In real-time, the NOAA's GOES-East satellite data in animated form showed forecasters how the area of severe weather was developing and moving.

NOAA's GOES-East satellite sits in a fixed orbit in space capturing visible and infrared imagery of weather over the eastern U.S. and Atlantic Ocean.

The GOES-East satellite is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NASA/NOAA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created the animation of GOES-East satellite data that covered the period during the tornado outbreak.

The GOES-East animation of visible and infrared imagery runs 31 seconds. The animation begins on April 27 at 00:15 UTC (April 26 at 8:15 p.m. EDT) and runs through April 28 at 14:15 UTC/10:15 a.m. EDT.

By 14:45 UTC/10:45 a.m. EDT on April 27 the animation shows the squall line of thunderstorms developing.


This animation of NOAA's GOES-East satellite data shows the development and movement of the weather system that spawned tornadoes affecting seven central and southern U.S. states on April 27-28, 2014. 

Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

To create the video and imagery, NASA/NOAA's GOES Project takes the cloud data from NOAA's GOES-East satellite and overlays it on a true-color image of land and ocean created by data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.

Together, those data created the entire picture of the storm system and show its movement.

A NASA satellite also captured an image of the storm, collecting infrared data on it as it passed overhead on April 27.

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. a false-colored image was created of the storm system using data gathered by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on April 27 at 18:59 UTC (1:59 p.m. CDT).

The AIRS image showed very cold cloud top temperatures indicating that the thunderstorms had strong uplift that pushed cloud tops to the top of the troposphere.

Some of those thunderstorms had cloud tops as cold as 200 kelvin (-99.6 F/-73.1C). Temperatures drop to just under 220 degrees kelvin at the top of the troposphere (and where the tropopause begins).

This false-colored infrared image from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows the cold cloud top temperatures associated with the severe thunderstorms that brought severe weather to seven states on Apr. 27. 

Credit: NASA/JPL, Ed Olsen

NASA MODIS Image: US Great Lakes Frozen

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image on Feb. 19, 2014. 

Credit: NASA

A deep freeze has settled in over the Great Lakes this winter and a new image released by NASA shows the astonishing extent of the ice cover as seen from space.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the lakes on the early afternoon of Feb. 19, 2014.

At the time, 80.3 percent of the five lakes were covered in ice, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Earlier this month, ice cover over the Great Lakes hit 88 percent for the first time since 1994.

Typically at its peak, the average ice cover is just over 50 percent, and it only occasionally passes 80 percent, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

A false colour image of the frigid Great Lakes on Feb. 19, 2014. 

Credit: NASA

Cold temperatures that have persisted in the region are largely responsible for this year's thick layer of ice, but cryospheric scientist Nathan Kurtz, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told the Earth Observatory that "secondary factors like clouds, snow and wind also play a role."

And some lakes are more frozen than others.

Nathan Kurtz

While the ice cover over Lake Erie, Lake Superior and Lake Huron is approaching 100 percent, Lake Ontario is only around 20 percent frozen and Lake Michigan is about 60 percent covered, according to the latest update from GLERL.

NASA researchers also put together a false-colour image combining shortwave infrared, near infrared and red wavelengths to pick out ice from other elements that look white in visible-wavelength images like snow, water and clouds. In this image, ice appears pale blue, and the thicker it is the brighter it looks.

Open water, meanwhile, is shown in navy, snow is blue-green and clouds appear either white or blue-green, according the Earth Observatory.

NASA AQUA Satellite: Tropical system affecting Mozambique's Nampula Province

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Mozambique Channel on January 28 at 10:35 UTC/5:35 a.m. EST and saw some of the thunderstorms had high cloud tops, where temperatures exceeded -63F/-52C (purple). 

Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen

NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on a developing area of tropical low pressure known as System 91S that was brushing the Nampula Province of Mozambique on January 28.

Nampula is a province in northern Mozambique and its eastern coast runs along the Mozambique Channel of the Southern Indian Ocean.

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Mozambique Channel on January 28 at 10:35 UTC/5:35 a.m. EST the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument (AIRS) captured infrared data on the clouds associated with System 91S.

AIRS showed some of the thunderstorms surrounding the low-level center of circulation had high cloud tops, where temperatures exceeded -63F/-52C, a threshold that indicates strong storms and potentially heavy rainmakers.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that animated multi-spectral satellite imagery showed that the low-level center was consolidating and that there were bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the center - a sign of strengthening.

System 91S was centered near 15.4 south and 41.6 east, about 810 nautical miles northeast of Maputo, Mozambique.

Maximum sustained winds are near the threshold for depression status, currently as high as 30 knots. The low is over warm enough waters to support further development.

NASA's Aqua Sees Massive US Winter Storm

On January 2, 2014, NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the United States multiple times, allowing the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board to capture this true-colour image of a massive winter storm moving up the eastern seaboard. 

Another image taken the same day by the GOES-13 satellite shows moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold air from Canada moving across the U.S. (Shown below)

Very cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills are moving in behind the system. 

The next storm is forming, and will bring blizzard conditions to the northern Plains Friday Night into Saturday. 

Extreme wind chills to -55 F are possible in the northern Plains this weekend. 

Credit: NASA/NOAA

MODIS Image: Pine Island Glacier 2013

This MODIS image taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite on Nov. 10, 2013, shows an iceberg that was part of the Pine Island Glacier and is now separating from the Antarctica continent.

What appears to be a connection point on the top left portion of the iceberg is actually ice debris floating in the water.

The original rift that formed the iceberg was first observed in October 2011 but as the disconnection was not complete, the “birth” of the iceberg had not yet happened.

It is believed the physical separation took place on or about July 10, 2013, however the iceberg persisted in the region, adjacent to the front of the glacier.

The iceberg is estimated to be 21 miles by 12 miles (35 km by 20 km) in size, roughly the size of Singapore. 

A team of scientists from UK's Sheffield and Southampton universities will track it and try to predict its path using satellite data.

Image credit: NASA