Slicing Through Hurricane Matthew

  • Released Monday, October 16, 2017
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Explore how scientists use different data sets to study impacts of 2016's Hurricane Matthew.

Explore how scientists use different data sets to study impacts of 2016's Hurricane Matthew.

Hurricane Matthew was the most devastating hurricane of the 2016 season and the first Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic since 2007. The storm swept through the Caribbean and up the southeastern coast of the United States, making landfall in South Carolina on Oct. 8 as a Category 1 storm. The combination of strong storm surge and a foot of rainfall led to widespread and devastating flooding in North and South Carolina. Since the storm, scientists have revisted the data to better understand how hurricanes like Matthew react to different conditions in the ocean and atmosphere. They combined rainfall and rainfall accumulation data from the joint NASA-Japan Global Precipitation Measurement mission satellite with high-resolution sea surface temperature data from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, soil moisture data from NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission, and wind speeds and a sea surface pressures simulated by computer models. Watch the videos to learn how combining multiple data set lead scientists to a more meaningful picture of Hurricane Matthew.

Explore how scientists combine data about land and sea with direct observations to better understand Hurricane Matthew.

Global Precipitation Measurement rainfall data works hand-in-hand with numerous other data sets and model runs.

Sea Surface Temperature shows the distribution of warm water (red) that fuels hurricanes.

Sea Surface Temperature shows the distribution of warm water (red) that fuels hurricanes.

Off the Florida coast, intense rainfall in red shows Matthew's first eyewall being replaced by a second smaller eyewall.

Off the Florida coast, intense rainfall in red shows Matthew's first eyewall being replaced by a second smaller eyewall.

Soil moisture shows how much rain soaked into the ground – essential for understanding flooding.

Soil moisture shows how much rain soaked into the ground – essential for understanding flooding.

For More Information

See https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12635

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Monday, October 16, 2017.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:47 PM EDT.

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