NASA Satellite Shows Cyclone Bijli's Rainfall from Birth to Death

Before satellites, meteorologists had no way to estimate or measure how much rain tropical cyclones generated where there were no buoys with rain gauges. The satellite managed by NASA and the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA provides that "rain gauge" from space in the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite.
This animation shows Cyclone Bijli's rainfall from the time it was "born" on April 13 in the Bay of Bengal as "storm 94B," intensified into tropical depression and renamed "01B" and then grew into Tropical Storm Bijli where it made landfall in southern Bangladesh on April 17. The TRMM Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis estimates that Bijli dropped as much as 129 millimeters (5.07 inches) of rainfall on Bangladesh, near 22.13 latitude and 90.63 longitude. That location is approximately 37.20km (23 miles) from coastal area of Patuakhali, a district in South-western Bangladesh.

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Science & Technology

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• NASA
• hurricane
• tropical cyclone
• weather