Nine of the top ten warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000

Nine of the top ten warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000. Last year was another one of them, coming in at 9th warmest since 1880.
The map above shows temperature anomalies, or changes, by region in 2011; it does not depict absolute temperature. Essentially, the map shows how much warmer or cooler each region was in 2011 compared with an averaged “base period” from 1951–1980. The line plot shows yearly temperature variations (from the base period average) for every year from 1880 to now. (For more explanation of how the analysis works, read World of Change: Global Temperatures.)
On January 19, 2012, researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released their annual analysis of global temperatures, noting that Earth’s land and ocean surfaces continue to experience higher temperatures than several decades ago. The global average temperature for 2011 was 0.92 degrees Fahrenheit (0.51 Celsius) higher than the mid-20th century baseline.
“We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting,” said GISS director James Hansen. “So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the ten warmest years on record.”
The difference between 2011 and the warmest year (2010) is 0.22 degrees F (0.12 C). This underscores why scientists emphasize long-term trends, as opposed to year-to-year variations. Because of the large natural variability of climate, scientists do not expect annual temperatures to rise consistently each year. However, they do expect a continuing rise over decades.
Higher temperatures today are largely sustained by increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. These gases absorb the infrared radiation emitted by Earth and release it into the atmosphere, rather than allowing it to escape to space. As the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased, the amount of energy “trapped” by these gases has led to higher temperatures. The carbon dioxide level was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise.
Hansen said he expects record-breaking global average temperature in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. “It’s always dangerous to make predictions about El Niño, but it’s safe to say we’ll see one in the next three years,” Hansen said. “It won’t take a very strong El Niño to push temperatures above 2010.”

1. References

2. NASA (2012, January 19) NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record. Accessed January 19, 2012.
3. NASA Earth Observatory (n.d.) World of Change: Global Temperatures. Accessed January 19, 2012.
4. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (2012, January 19) GISS Surface Temperature Analysis. Accessed January 19, 2012.

Taken from  >> http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov 

Cyclone Thane - Thru the eyes of NASA earth observatory

Tropical Storm Thane formed over the Indian Ocean on December 25, 2011. By December 28, Thane had strengthened into a cyclone and was headed toward southern India. On December 28, the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Thane was located roughly 270 nautical miles (500 kilometers) southeast of Chennai. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 65 knots (120 kilometers per hour) with gusts up to 80 knots (150 kilometers per hour). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on December 28, 2011. Thane lacks a distinct eye but still sports the spiral shape characteristic of strong storms. Skies are clear over Chennai but storm clouds extend over other parts of the Indian coast. The JTWC forecast that Thane would continue moving toward the west, making landfall south of Chennai on December 30.

 Cyclone Thane came ashore in southeastern India in late December 2011, killing at least 47 people, flattening homes, destroying crops, and leaving tens of thousands in need of emergency aid. Some aid workers feared that Thane may have caused more property and infrastructure damage in the region than the tsunami that struck in 2004. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on December 29, 2011. The center of the storm spins just off the coast of southeastern India, and clouds extend over India and Sri Lanka. Thane formed as a tropical storm on December 25, 2011, and strengthened into a cyclone by December 28. When the storm made landfall, it brought high winds and tidal surges. Thane knocked out power in many areas, disrupted drinking-water supplies, and blocked roads with uprooted trees.

Tornado Tracks in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Deadly tornadoes raked across Alabama on April 27, 2011, killing as many as 210 people as of April 29. The hardest-hit community was Tuscaloosa. The top image, acquired on April 28 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows three tornado tracks through and around the city. The lower image, from April 12, shows the area before the storm.
The tracks are pale brown trails where green trees and plants have been uprooted, leaving disturbed ground. Though faint, the center track runs from southwest of Tuscaloosa, through the gray city, and extends northeast towards Birmingham. Two other tracks run parallel to the center track. The northernmost track lies in an area where the National Weather Service reported a tornado, but no tornado was reported in the vicinity of the more visible southern track. In the southern region, strong winds were reported.
The tornadoes were part of a larger weather pattern that produced more than 150 tornadoes across six states, according to the National Weather Service. The death toll reached 300 on April 29, making the outbreak the deadliest in the United States since 1974.

Magnitude 6.3 Earthquake near Christchurch, NZ

At 12:51 p.m. local time on February 22, 2011 (11:51 p.m. February 21 UTC), a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the South Island of New Zealand, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported. Several smaller aftershocks followed. The quake occurred near the city of Christchurch, a community of some 400,000 residents on the east coast. The initial death toll was 65, according to news reports, and authorities warned that the toll could rise sharply as search-and-rescue efforts continued.
This map shows the earthquakes that occurred near Christchurch since September 3, 2010. On that day a magnitude 7.1 quake struck to the west of Christchurch. Black circles represent earthquakes from September 3, 2010, until February 21, 2011. Red circles show the locations of the magnitude 6.3 quake and aftershocks on February 22 and the morning of February 23. Larger circles represent stronger earthquakes. Yellow shows urban areas, including Christchurch.
The USGS characterized the 6.3-magnitude quake on February 22 as an aftershock of the quake that struck to the west, in Darfield, New Zealand, on September 3, 2010. Darfield lies about 50 kilometers (30 miles) west-northwest of Christchurch. Although no specific tectonic structure linked the two events, numerous aftershocks of the September quake occurred along a roughly east-west line, as this image indicates. The USGS stated that the quakes were associated with regional tectonic plate boundary deformation. The Pacific Plate and the Australia Plate interact under the South Island of New Zealand.
The Darfield earthquake in September 2010 caused no casualties, even though it had a higher magnitude. Besides striking closer to a major population center, the 6.3-magnitude Christchurch earthquake had a depth of just 5 kilometers (3 miles). The New Zealand Herald reported that, whereas the Darfield quake happened in the early morning hours, the February 22 quake struck at the “worst possible time” of day—at the lunch hour when city streets were crowded with shoppers, diners, office workers, and school children. Moreover, some of the buildings that collapsed may have been weakened by the September 2010 quake.
Effects of the Christchurch earthquake were felt some 200 kilometers (125 miles) away, along the South Island’s west coast. A 30 million-tonne (33 million-ton) chunk of ice broke off from the Tasman Glacier, and slid into Tasman Lake. In fact, officials had expected ice would break off the glacier, although they expected the event to result from heavy rainfall caused by La Niña.

 

Rains from Tropical Cyclone Carlos.. over N-W Australia

Tropical Cyclone Carlos brought heavy rains to the coasts of Northern Territory and Western Australia in February 2011. In the Northern Territory city of Darwin, Carlos helped break rainfall records in what was already an unusually rainy month. The storm’s high winds and heavy rains also forced the suspension of petroleum mining projects in Western Australia, according to news reports.
This color-coded image shows rainfall amounts along the northwestern coast of Australia from February 15 to 22, 2011. The heaviest rainfall amounts—400 millimeters or nearly 16 inches—appear in dark blue. The lightest amounts—50 millimeters or less than 2 inches—appear in light green. The storm track for Carlos is superimposed on the rainfall amounts. Carlos maintained a fairly uniform storm intensity from February 17 to 22.
The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that, as of 11:00 p.m. Western Australia time on February 22, Carlos was located roughly 100 nautical miles (185 kilometers) east-northeast of Learmonth, Western Australia. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 55 knots (100 kilometers per hour) and gusts up to 70 knots (130 kilometers per hour). Carlos was forecast to maintain its current strength over the next 12 hours then move west of Learmonth and intensify slightly. The storm was not expected to transition to an extra-tropical storm for about 96 hours.
This image is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis produced at Goddard Space Flight Center, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.

More heavy rain for E. Srilanka from 1-Feb to 7-Feb-2011

JAN-2011

FEB-2011

FEB-2011
A month after flooding killed 43 people and displaced over a million residents, torrential rains once again pummeled Sri Lanka. By February 6, 2011, rain had fallen for six consecutive days, forcing a quarter of a million people into government relief camps. Authorities confirmed eight deaths and listed two more people as missing, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
This map shows rainfall amounts over Sri Lanka February 1 through 7, 2011. The heaviest rainfall—more than 600 millimeters (24 inches)—appears in dark blue. The lightest rainfall—less than 75 millimeters (3 inches)—appears in light green. Although the heaviest precipitation occurs offshore, significant rainfall extends over the entire island.
This image is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis produced at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.

Tropical Cyclone Yasi

Still soaking from months of rain and major floods, the residents of eastern Australia braced for the arrival of Cyclone Yasi in early February 2011. The storm was hovering in strength between category 4 and 5, the most damaging on the hurricane classification scale.
This natural-color image shows Yasi approaching the coast at 1:35 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time (03:35 Universal Time) on February 2. The image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite.
At 10 p.m. local time (12:00 UTC) on February 2, shortly before Yasi reached the coast, the storm packed sustained winds of 250 kilometers (155 miles) per hour, with gusts to 305 kilometers (189 miles) per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
News reports stated that the storm made landfall between Innisfall and Cardwell, south of Cairns, Queensland, around midnight on February 3. Storm surges along the coast were predicted to be as high as 9 meters (30 feet).

Ice Covers Lake Baikal & Baikal Ice Marathon

Ice covered Lake Baikal in late January 2011, as snow coated nearby peaks. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’sAqua satellite captured this natural-color image on January 24, 2011.

Ice on Lake Baikal is not at all unusual in January. The ice that forms on the lake is generally quite strong, even strong enough to support the weight of vehicles driving over the surface. Runners also rely on the ice to support their weight in the Lake Baikal International Ice Marathon.

Although the ice on Lake Baikal is often thick in January, the lake rarely freezes early in the fall. The lake’s considerable volume enables it to retain heat accumulated during the summer months throughout the autumn season. In extremely cold conditions, however, the lake may freeze as early as December.

Lake Baikal (also known as Ozero Baykal or Ozero Bajkal), is the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake. At roughly 395 miles (635 kilometers) long, with an average width of about 30 miles (50 kilometers), it is also the world’s largest freshwater lake by volume, holding as much fresh water as North America’s Great Lakes combined. Surrounded by mountains, the lake occupies a rift where parts of the Earth’s crust as wrenching apart. Geologists value the lake for what it can reveal about the development of ocean basins.

Baikal Ice Marathon

More on Baikal Ice Marathan visit ... http://www.absolute-siberia.com/en/pages/ice_marathon.html

Eruption at Mount Merapi, Indonesia , 5-Nov-2010

Signs of the eruption at Mount Merapi managed to puncture the persistent cloud cover over Java on November 5, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image the same day.
The volcano’s plume formed a V shape, fanning out to the west from the summit and casting shadows on the surrounding clouds below. According to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Darwin, Australia, the ash plume rose to at least 55,000 feet (16 kilometers) in altitude and stretched 220 miles (350 km) to the west and southwest, as of 12:13 a.m. local time on November 6 (17:13 UTC, Nov 5).
The Eruptions volcanism blog and the Associated Press reported a death toll of at least 122 people, more than 100,000 people evacuated, and homes and fields covered in volcanic ash. The Indonesian government declared the event a national emergency and extended the “danger zone” for the eruption to 12 miles (20 kilometers), including the ancient capital of Yogyakarta.
Among Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, Merapi sits in one of the world’s most densely populated areas. Recorded eruptions have included multiple pyroclastic flows—searing avalanches of ash, gas, and rock fragments—and lahars—flows of water, rock debris, and mud caused by rainwater mixing with ash and other volcanic material. These eruptions have repeatedly devastated nearby communities and croplands.

Shrinking Aral Sea

2000

2005

2008

2010

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed from snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into fields for cotton and other crops. Before the project, the two rivers left the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert—the Syr Darya to the north and the Amu Darya in parallel to the south—and finally pooled together in the lowest part of the desert basin. The lake they made, the Aral Sea, was once the fourth largest lake in the world.
Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea. This series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite documents the changes in the Aral Sea throughout the past decade. At the start of the series in 2000, the lake was already a fraction of its 1960 extent (black line). The Northern Aral Sea (sometimes called the Small Aral Sea) had separated from the Southern (Large) Aral Sea. The Southern Aral Sea had split into an eastern and a western lobe that remained tenuously connected at both ends.
By 2001, the southern connection had been severed, and the shallower eastern part retreated rapidly over the next several years. Especially large retreats in the eastern lobe of the Southern Sea appear to have occurred between 2005 and 2009, when drought limited and then cut off the flow of the Amu Darya. The final image in the series is from the summer of 2010, when water levels increased slightly after the drought broke.
As the lake dried up, fisheries and the communities that depended on them collapsed. The increasingly salty water became polluted with fertilizer and pesticides. The blowing dust from the exposed lakebed, contaminated with agricultural chemicals, became a public health hazard. The salty dust blew off the lakebed and settled onto fields, degrading the soil. Croplands had to be flushed with larger and larger volumes of river water. The loss of the moderating influence of such a large body of water made winters colder and summers hotter and drier.
In a last-ditch effort to save some of the lake, Kazakhstan built a dam between the northern and southern parts of the Aral Sea. Completed in 2005, the dam was basically a death sentence for the southern Aral Sea, which was judged to be beyond saving. All of the water flowing into the desert basin from the Syr Darya now stays in the Northern Aral Sea. Between 2005 and 2006, the water levels in that part of the lake rebounded significantly and very small increases are visible throughout the rest of the time period. The differences in water color are due to changes in sediment

Es Safa Volcanic Field, Syria

Es Safa is a striking basaltic volcanic field located to the southeast of Damascus, Syria. It lies within the larger Harrat Ash Shamah—the largest volcanic field on the Arabian tectonic plate. Harrat Ash Shamah parallels the Red Sea and extends from northeastern Israel, through southern Syria and Jordan, and into Saudi Arabia, covering an area of over 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles).
Es Safa contains numerous vents that have been active during the Holocene Epoch (beginning approximately 12,000 years ago). The most recent recorded activity was a boiling lava lake observed in the area around 1850. The dark lava flow field (center) likely represents the latest activity of the volcanic field, and is emplaced over older, lighter colored flows. The older flow surfaces also have light tan sediment accumulating in shallow depressions, in contrast to the relatively pristine surfaces of the darker, younger flows.
Cinder cones are scattered throughout the Es Safa field, but many are aligned along northwest-southeast trends that likely indicate faults through which magma rose to the surface. Two such alignments are visible at image left. To the southeast (image right) a small reservoir feeds water distribution ditches extending northwards.

La Nina in progress

Continuing a trend that began earlier in the year, La Niña conditions strengthened through the summer of 2010, evidenced by a streak of cool water across the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Acquired by the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite, this map shows a 10-day average of sea-surface height centered on September 6, 2010. Because water expands with rising temperatures, satellites can use sea-surface height as a proxy for temperature. Areas where the water surface is higher (and therefore warmer) than average are shades of red-brown, and areas where the water surface is lower (cooler) than average are blue. Normal conditions appear in white.
The El Niño weakens the westward trade winds that normally blow over the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Those winds keep eastern Pacific waters cool and concentrate warm waters in the western Pacific. A weakening of trade winds enables warm waters to gradually spread eastward, heating up the central Pacific. La Niña typically follows El Niño, and causes essentially the opposite conditions. La Niña strengthens the trade winds, spreading cool water from the South American coast to the central Pacific. This see-saw pattern of El Niño and La Niña can drive large-scale weather changes, especially in the tropics.
This map reveals a broad swath of cool water stretching from South America to New Guinea. The ocean is not, however, uniformly cool. Pockets of warm water are mixed with the cool, particularly in the western Pacific. Warmer waters in this region can lead to increased rainfall, and La Niña conditions may have played a role in the devastating floods in Pakistan during the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2010.
Over the eastern Pacific Ocean, cooler waters lead to less moisture along the coasts of North and South America. So as more rain pounds some parts of the globe, La Niña conditions can deepen drought in others. By the time La Niña conditions intensified in September 2010, the southwestern United States had experienced more than 10 years of mostly dry conditions. A release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported that the American Southwest might experience not only drier conditions, but also intensified wildfires under strong La Niña conditions.
OSTM/Jason-2 is a joint oceanographic mission of NASA and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), France’s space agency.

Hurricane Igor

Tropical Storm Igor formed over the far eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean on September 8, 2010, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported. From its genesis locality southeast of Cape Verde, Igor traveled westward. Igor strengthened to a hurricane on September 11, becoming the fourth of the season. By 11:00 a.m. Atlantic Standard Time (AST) on September 13, Igor was a category 4 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of Hurricane Igor at 12:40 p.m. AST (16:40 UTC) on September 13, 2010. Igor shows all the characteristics of a strong hurricane, including a distinct eye and spiral arms spanning hundreds of kilometers.
On September 13, the NHC forecast that Igor would continue moving toward the west at about 10 miles (17 kilometers) per hour. Late in the day on September 13, or early in the day on September 14, Igor was expected to turn toward the west-northwest. Although the storm’s intensity would likely fluctuate over the next 48 hours, it was expected to remain a powerful hurricane.

Landslide in Zhouqu, China

Tucked between the steep slopes of the Min Shan and the Bailong River in northwest China, the city of Zhouqu has a picturesque location. However, the intimidating natural beauty also carries a risk. On August 8, 2010, unusually intense monsoon rains triggered devastating landslides and floods that buried a densely populated area in the center of the city. As of August 17, China’s official news agency reported 1,270 deaths with 474 people still missing. This detailed image, from DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 satellite, shows the largest slide in the lower part of the city on August 10.
The slide terminates in a brown fan that extends into the Bailong River. Mud surrounds several of the buildings near the river’s edge and branches into adjacent streets. Some of this mud may have been deposited by flood waters that gathered behind the slide as torrential rain continued to fall. In the large image, which shows a wider area, the dark waters of Bailong River seeps around buildings across from the slide and up the wide road that runs along the river’s edge not far from the slide.
Moving away from the river, the mud has a rougher, more varied texture where the slide channeled through the center of the city. The smooth dark spots are probably water. Light-colored flecks are probably debris. The slide area widens again in the lower right corner, clearly covering blocks of buildings.
Slightly darker than the surrounding mud, streams snake across the surface of the slide. The large image reveals that the landslides followed the course of streams down the mountains and into the valley where Zhouqu was built. On the far right side of the large image, closer to the top of the slide and beyond the right edge of the web image, farmland surrounds the streams. The steep slopes on either side of the streams are bare of vegetation, possibly making them prone to landslides.

Following intense monsoon rains, a landslide struck Zhouqu County of China’s Gansu Province on August 8, 2010. By early September, the death toll stood at 1,765, Dave’s Landslide Blog reported, and this single event contributed to an unusually high worldwide death toll for landslides in 2010.
Weeks after the event, the landslide in remained visible to the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. ALI captured this natural-color image on September 2, 2010. Bare earth forms a giant Y shape on the otherwise forested mountain slopes. The separate slides have coalesced into a wide river of mud flowing into town. Clouds leave part of the landscape in shadow, but the landslide remains discernible all the way to the river at the bottom of the valley.

Unusually Intense Monsoon Rains

The first week of August 2010 brought extreme flooding and landslides to many parts of Asia. By August 11, floods in the Indus River basin had become Pakistan’s worst natural disaster to date, leaving more than 1,600 people dead and disrupting the lives of about 14 million people, reported Reuters. Across the border in northeast India, flash floods killed 185 with 400 still missing, reported BBC News. Floods in North Korea and northeast China buried farmland and destroyed homes, factories, railroads, and bridges. And in northwest China, rain triggered a massive landslide that left 702 dead with 1,042 missing, reported China’s state news agency, Xinhua. All of these disasters occurred as a result of unusually heavy monsoon rains, depicted in this image.
Made with data collected by NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, the image shows rain rates (the intensity with which rain was falling) between August 1 and August 9, 2010, compared to average rain rates for the same period. Blue reveals areas where rain was much more intense than normal, while brown points to less intense rain.
Dark blue spots cover the regions of Pakistan, India, and China where the floods and landslides occurred. These regions received as much as 24 millimeters of rain per day above normal daily rainfall. A broad swath of very intense rain also covers Indonesia and parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
All of this rain comes as part of the Asian Monsoon. The Asian Monsoon occurs because of the temperature difference between the Eurasian continent and the ocean. In the summer, the land warms much more than the ocean. Heated air over the land rises, and cool, humid air from the ocean moves in to replace it. As the humid air warms over the land, it too rises and the water condenses into rain.
Asia’s summer monsoon varies in intensity from year to year for a variety of reasons. One of the strongest influences on the Asian Monsoon is the El Niño–La Niña oscillation. During La Niña years, the Eastern Pacific is cooler than average, while the western Pacific Ocean (by Asia) is warmer. Air over the ocean is warmer, more buoyant, and more humid. It rises higher and forms more intense storms.
La Niña usually enhances the Asian Monsoon, and it may have been a factor in shaping the intense 2010 monsoon. In July 2010, La Niña conditions had developed. Ocean temperatures in the western Pacific were warmer than normal. The patterns of unusually heavy rain seen in this image are similar to rainfall patterns caused by La Niña.
Additional factors may also have influenced the 2010 monsoon rains. The northern Indian Ocean was also warmer than normal. In particular, waters off the coast of Pakistan (the Arabian Sea) were much warmer than normal in satellite-based sea surface temperature measurements taken in July 2010. These enhanced temperatures are indicative of a shorter-scale weather pattern that also enhances monsoon rains.

Heavy Rain in Bangladesh and India

Heavy monsoon rains pounded India and Bangladesh in early July 2010. The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported that more than 600,000 river island residents had been marooned, and thousands of hectares of farmland had been destroyed in Bangladesh by flooding. Meanwhile, CNN reported that monsoon floods had killed at least 221 people, and affected a million more in India since June 1.
This color-coded image shows rainfall amounts in India, Bangladesh, and the Bay of Bengal from July 6 to 12, 2010. The heaviest rainfall amounts—400 millimeters or nearly 16 inches—appear in dark blue. The lightest amounts—50 millimeters or less than 2 inches—appear in light green. The heaviest rainfall amounts appear concentrated in northern and eastern Bangladesh, although still substantial rainfall amounts affect a much larger area.
This image is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis produced at Goddard Space Flight Center, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.

Hurricane Alex: First Atlantic Hurricane of 2010

Looking quite a bit more substantial than it did the day before, Hurricane Alex dominated the skies over the western Gulf of Mexico when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this image at 12:10 p.m. Central Daylight Time on June 30, 2010.
Compared to the image acquired the previous day, Alex appears tighter, with fewer areas of clear sky or thin clouds within the body of the storm. A distinct eye appears at the center of the storm, not far from the coast of northern Mexico. Overall, Alex has shifted slightly toward the northwest, consistent with earlier forecasts.
In its 1:00 p.m. CDT bulletin, the National Hurricane Center reported that Alex had maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (135 kilometers per hour), and the storm was headed northwest at 12 mph (18 km/hr). This path drew it away from a direct pass over the ongoing oil slick, but high winds and waves from the storm were likely to affect the ongoing clean up efforts for a time, according to The New York Times.
The arrival of the first hurricane in June is in keeping with the National Hurricane Center’s prediction of an above-average storm season. It is rare for a tropical storm to intensify to a hurricane in June. The last time it happened was in 1995, when Hurricane Allison formed in early June. The NHC predictions for an active season were based in part on the end of El Niño conditions in the Pacific and a possible transition to La Niña, as well as on the unusually high sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic.

Cyclone "Phet" .. Rainfall thru eyes of TRMM satellite

Tropical Cyclone Phet brought not just strong winds but also heavy rains to the Arabian Sea, the Arabian Peninsula, and the coast of Pakistan in late May and early June 2010. This color-coded image shows both rainfall amounts and the storm track for Phet from May 31 to June 6, 2010. The storm track appears in shades of peach, coral, and red. The rainfall amounts appear in shades of blue and green.
Phet reached its greatest intensity off the coast of Oman on June 3. After making landfall in Oman, Phet dissipated somewhat, but remained organized enough to move back over the Arabian Sea toward Pakistan. The heaviest rainfall amounts—600 or more millimeters (23.6 or more inches)—occur off the coast of Oman, south of where the storm reached its greatest intensity. Lighter rainfall amounts occur near the coasts of Oman, Iran, and Pakistan. Although winds were slower and rainfall was lighter over land, the storm still caused substantial damage along coastlines. Agence France-Prese reported that Phet caused 15 deaths in Oman and four more deaths in Pakistan.
This image is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis produced at Goddard Space Flight Center, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.

Cyclone "Phet" Good visible satellite image taken just before Pakistan landfall

Good visible NASA satellite image taken just before Pakistan landfall on 6-Jun-2010

Cyclone "Phet" .. over Oman.. good satellite image

4-Jun-2010

Once a powerful Category 4 storm, Cyclone Phet had weakened to a Category 3 storm by the time it came ashore over Oman on June 4, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this photo-like image of the storm at 10:40 a.m. local time on June 4. By that time, Phet had degraded into a Category 1 storm with winds of about 75 knots (140 kilometers per hour or 86 miles per hour).
The storm’s swirling clouds cover most of northern Oman and all of the Gulf of Oman in this image. Though it is partially over land, the storm maintains a distinctive spiraling shape. In its northward trek over the Arabian Sea, Cyclone Phet gave Oman a glancing blow, cutting across the northeast edge of the country. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast that the storm would re-emerge over the Gulf of Oman late on June 4 or early June 5, and move east towards Karachi, Pakistan, as a tropical storm.
According to news reports, Phet flooded Oman’s capital city, Masqat, but had not caused any casualties as of June 4.
The large image is the highest-resolution version of the image. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.