Tropical Storm Bongani, Second of the Southern Indian Ocean Season

Tropical Storm Bongani in the Southern Indian Ocean, capturing rainfall, cloud temperature, cloud heights and more. Bongani is the second tropical cyclone in the southern hemisphere season and is already poised for a landfall in Mozambique later this week.

At 4 a.m. ET (0900 UTC) on November 24, Bongani was located 560 miles north-northeast of Antananarivo, Madagascar, near 10.9 degrees south latitude and 51.9 east longitude. Bongani had maximum sustained winds near 46 mph (40 knots), and was moving south-southwest near 13 mph (11 knots) toward the northern cape of Madagascar, into the northern section of the Mozambique Channel. It’s generating waves of 13 feet in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Typhoon Nida Lashing Yap State in the Western Pacific

Typhoon Nida grew out of the 26th tropical depression in the western Pacific Ocean, and is now lashing Yap State. NASA and the Japanese Space Agency’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured an image of heavy rainfall and towering thunderstorms in Nida’s center today, November 24.

TRMM rainfall data indicated the majority of Nida’s rainfall was between 20 and 40 millimeters (.78 to 1.57 inches) per hour, with areas near Nida’s center falling at as much as 2 inches of rain per hour, which is considered heavy rainfall. That area of rainfall was the same area where TRMM saw some “hot towers.” A hot tower is a tropical cumulonimbus cloud that extends outside of the troposphere and into the tropopause. TRMM noticed a couple of hot towers in Nida with cloud tops as high as 8.6 miles high. These towers are called “hot” because they rise high because of the large amount of latent heat released as water vapor condenses into liquid.

Nida had maximum sustained winds near 74 mph, making it a Category One typhoon. It was located about 265 miles south of Guam, near 8.9 North latitude and 145.0 East longitude. Nida was moving west-northwest near 6 mph and generating 18-foot high waves.