Rare South Atlantic Tropical Cyclone

  • Credit

    Image and caption coutesy of W. Timothy Liu at JPL, Project Scientist of QuikSCAT.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite is designed to measure rainfall over the global tropics using the combination of a microwave sensor and the first and only precipitation radar in space.

NASA’s Quick Scatterometer spacecraft and its SeaWinds instrument tracked the development of an unusual storm in the South Atlantic ocean for several days at the end of March 2004. The storm was declared a hurricane before it came ashore in Brazil, though its status as a hurricane is being contested. The storm caused considerable damage, including some deaths. This was the first hurricane observed in the South Atlantic since the start of meteorological satellites in the sixties. In the image captured on March 27, 2004, white arrows representing wind speed and direction are superimposed on the color image of wind speeds.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    QuikSCAT/QuikSCAT

  • Start Date

    2004-03-27

  • Event Start Date

    2004-03-26

  • NH Image ID

    12057

  • NH Event ID

    10318

  • NH Posting Date

    2004-04-07