Voice off Screen: All eyes are on Hurricane Matthew as it barrels towards the coast
of Florida and NASA has some new views of the storm and here
to show us these new views and tell us what NASA is seeing is Dr. Scott Braun
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, thanks for joining us. Dr. Scott Braun: Sure, good morning.
Voice off Screen: So Hurricane Matthew is strongest hurricane to develop in the Atlantic
in almost 10 years. How are scientists using satellites to
look inside of this storm? Dr. Scott Braun: Well NASA's got a fleet of satellites that take
different measurements of the Earth's atmosphere, one of the most important ones for hurricanes is our
Global Precipitation Measurement Mission or GPM, which provides
two and three dimensional views of hurricanes such as this example of Matthew from October
2nd. It allows you to see the heavy rain near the center
the major rain bands outside from the center, and the three dimensional structure
is indicated by the blue colors that you saw there, and that can provide
important clues as to whether or not the storm is likely to intensify or weaken
Voice off Screen: This has been a slow moving but
rapidly intensifying storm. How can images like this give us clues
as to when a storm is about to intensify
Dr. Scott Braun: Well Matthew intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 5 storm in a little bit over a day.
Its called "Rapid Intensification" and it's still
extremely difficult to forecast and we're still trying to learn a lot about the process
that are involved, you know how much of it comes from the effects
of the storms environment versus internal processes. Satellites like GPM give
us those observations of what's going in the storm and again can provide
clues as to what's going on and how the storm is responding to it's
environment, so it's really critical to understanding these storms.
Voice off Screen: Matthew produced torrential rains in the Caribbean and could produce significant
rains along the US coast, can we see how
this rainfall is accumulating from space? Dr. Scott Braun: Yeah GPM is the
linchpin of an international constellation and you can combine all those different
satellites to produce rainfall accumulations on about a half hour
time scale. And just by adding that up over time you can measure
how much rainfall is falling. In this example you can see this storm passing Haiti.
As the storm and it's outer rain band has produced up to 20 inches of rain over Haiti
and the Dominican Republic, with the steep terrain in that area produces
major flooding and potential landslides that can
pose significant risk.
Voice off Screen: What is the future of how NASA will monitor hurricanes? Dr. Scott Braun: Well NASA is getting ready to launch
two new missions, we have the GOES-R Mission getting
ready to launch in November from Cape Canaveral.
And that will provide much more advanced geosynchronous observations compared to what we
had in the past. We're also getting ready to launch a new mission that's
a constellation of very small satellites that will measure wind speeds
at the ocean surface within hurricanes, we also have advanced research aircraft
such as the Global Hawk that can provide measurements and in fact right now
the Global Hawk is flying over Matthew as part of a NOAA campaign
to take measurements within the storm and study how that data
could potentially impact forecasts.
Voice off Screen: So where can we learn more and see some more of the latest images?
Dr. Scott Braun: Well for those in the coastal zones of Florida and the southeast they should go to
the National Hurricane website or their local weather service website
to get the latest warnings and information on the storm. For those interested
in imagery from NASA, they can go to NASA.gov/hurricanes.
Voice off Screen: Great, thanks so much for joining us.
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, thanks for joining us. Dr. Scott Braun: Sure, good morning.