The Southern Indian Ocean is still warm enough to enable tropical cyclones to form, and Tropical Cyclone 21S did just that today. NASA’s Aqua satellite captured infrared and visible images of 21S and the infrared showed some limited areas of strong convection, while the visible image showed a very small, compact storm. At 900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) today, March 23, Tropical Cyclone 21S was located about 505 miles west of Cocos Island near 12.9 degrees South latitude and 88.3 degrees East longitude. Tropical Storm 21S has maximum sustained winds near 46 mph (40 knots) and tropical storm-force winds extend out to about 45 miles from the center. Today’s NASA Aqua satellite visible image confirmed that 21S is a compact storm, about 90 miles in diameter. |
The last seven days of precipitation (from March 15-22) in Australia. It indicates that rainfall between 100-200 mm (between 4-8 inches) of rainfall fell in areas of yellow and orange on Australia’s northeast coast Those rainfall maps were made into a seven-day “movie loop” that allows users to track storms as they travel over land and oceans around the globe. The rainfall animations are developed in the Laboratory for Atmospheres of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. by the TRMM precipitation research team. About 130mm (5.1 inches) or rainfall was estimated by TRMM at -20.38 latitude and 148.13 longitude, in Bogie, Queensland, Australia, near the Mount Aberdeen State Park. In Springlands, west of Collinsville, Queensland, near -20.88 latitude and 148.88 longitude, TRMM estimated a rainfall of 136mm (5.3 inches). At Mount Wyatt, 163mm (6.4 inches) of rain were estimated to have fallen, and southeast of Swan’s Lagoon and Millaroo, TRMM estimated that 179mm (7.0 inches) of rain had fallen from Ului. |
