GPM Catches Hurricane Nate's Landfall...Twice

NASA's GPM satellite helped track Nate's progress through the Gulf of Mexico and also captured Nate's landfall on the north central Gulf Coast. This animation shows instantaneous rainrate estimates from NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG product over North America and the surrounding waters beginning on Thursday October 5th when Nate first became a tropical storm near the northeast coast of Nicaragua in the western Caribbean until its eventual landfall on the northern Gulf Coast on Sunday October 8th. IMERG estimates precipitation from a combination of space-borne passive microwave sensors, including the GMI microwave sensor onboard the GPM core satellite, and geostationary IR (infrared) data. The animation shows Nate moving rapidly northward through the Gulf of Mexico on the 7th. Nate's rapid movement from 20 to as much as 26 mph did not allow the storm much time to strengthen despite being over very warm waters and in a relatively low wind shear environment. Nate reached a peak intensity of 90 mph sustained winds, which it maintained while passing over the Gulf of Mexico, but it did not intensify any further before making landfall. The animation also shows two 3D flyby's of Nate captured by the GPM core satellite as it overflew the storm just before landfall at 22:58 UTC (5:58 CDT) on Saturday October 7th and again at 08:42 UTC (3:42 CDT) on Sunday October 8th soon after Nate's second landfall. The 3D precipitation tops (shown in blue) are from GPM's DPR as are the vertical cross sections of precipitation intensity. The first overpass shows that Nate is a very asymmetric storm with most of the rainbands associated with Nate located north and east of the center. With it's rapid movement, Nate was unable to fully develop and lacks the classic ring of intense thunderstorms associated a fully developed eyewall. Although overall much the same, the second overpass shows an area of deep, intense convection producing heavy rains over southwest Alabama.

Color bar for liquid precipitation rates (ie, rain rates). Shades of green represent low amounts of liquid precipitation, whereas shades of red represent high amounts of precipitation.

Color bar for frozen precipitation rates (ie, snow rates). Shades of cyan represent low amounts of frozen precipitation, whereas shades of purple represent high amounts of precipitation.

Print resolution image of precipitation rates via IMERG and GPM/GPROF as Hurricane Nate made it's first landfall on October 7th, 2017.

Print resolution image of Hurricane Nate's 3D internal precipitation structure on October 7th, 2017.

Print resolution image of Hurricane Nate's surface precipitation as it made it's second landfall on October 8th, 2017.

Print resolution image of Hurricane Nate's internal 3D precipitation structure on October 8th, 2017.