System 92W (Western Pacific Ocean)

NASA’s Aqua satellite noticed that a new tropical disturbance formed today, November 19, just 8.1 degrees north of the Equator in the western Pacific Ocean. It is designated “System 92W” right now, but if it does mature into a tropical cyclone it will get a name.

System 92W is located about 230 miles east of Kwajalein, near 8.1 north and 171.5 east. Kwajalein is an atoll that’s part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It’s about 2,100 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.

NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over System 92W on November 19 at 8:23 a.m. ET (1323 UTC). Infrared imagery from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on the Aqua satellite found some strong convection and high, cold clouds and thunderstorms in its center. Cloud-top temperatures are important because they tell forecasters how high thunderstorms are, and the higher the thunderstorm, the colder the cloud tops and the more powerful the thunderstorms.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the organization that forecasts for tropical cyclones in the Western Pacific Ocean, noted today that “Animated multispectral satellite imagery depicts a developing low-level circulation center with isolated bursts of deep convection over the center.” AIRS was satellite instrument that identified that strong convection in the center of the storm.

If there’s a tropical wave that is has any potential for development, and it’s cited by one of the forecast centers, NASAHurricane’s Twitter will explain what it is, and where it is. For example, if there’s a tropical wave in the Atlantic Ocean, Twitter provides the opportunity to highlight it and give a status on it.

NASA uses several satellites in hurricane research including Aqua, CloudSat, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, Jason-1, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2, Landsat, QuikScat, and Terra. NASA also creates images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. NASA researches hurricanes and supplies some of the data from these satellites to NOAA, who forecast the storms. Each storm update on the NASA Hurricane page, and subsequently posted on Twitter, will reference what at least one of these satellites is seeing in a current tropical cyclone.