NASA Aqua Image: 2 Cyclones in one InfraRed Image

The Northwestern Pacific Ocean is active with two tropical cyclones today, Tropical Storm Meari near the Philippines, and Tropical Depression Haima moving over China and now toward Vietnam.


NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the region on June 22 and captured an infrared image of both storms in one image.

One of the instruments onboard NASA's Aqua satellite is the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS).

AIRS captures cloud top temperatures in tropical cyclones to determine the strength of convection and thunderstorms.

The strongest thunderstorms have cloud tops with icy cold temperatures of -63F/-52C and are indicative of areas where rainfall rates could reach up to 2 inches / 50 mm per hour and both Meari and Haima had large areas of those very cold cloud top temperatures.

AIRS captured the image on June 22 at 17:53 UTC 1:53 p.m. EDT and it showed the heaviest rainfall and strongest convection (rapidly rising air that forms the thunderstorms that power a tropical cyclone) from Tropical Storm Meari is currently over the Philippine Sea and skirting the east coast of Luzon.

The imagery showed the large area of strong thunderstorms (and convection) in Haima mostly over the South China Sea and Hainan Island, China.

Haima is still a tropical depression as its maximum sustained winds on June 23 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) were near 30 knots (34 mph/55 kmh). Tropical storms have maximum sustained winds between 38 and 73 mph.

It was located over Hainan Island, China, and about 235 nautical miles west-southwest of Hong Kong, China near 21.4 North and 109.6 East. Tropical Depression Haima is moving westward at 10 knots (11 mph/19 kmh).