Observing Tropical Storms using NASA GIS Data

Near real-time monitoring of tropical storms and observations of previous hurricanes.

Allison Alcott

Tropical storms can be extremely destructive to coastal populations due to the high winds, rainfall and flooding. Southern and Southeastern Asia and Pacific Islands, and the eastern coast of the Americas see frequent and often devastating tropical storms. The near real-time GIS  Tropical Storms Web App  may be used to identify conditions that contribute to tropical storms, as well as view layers indicating the effects of recent named storms. An interactive companion  Tropical Storms Web Map  is also available.

ArcGIS Web Application

Tropical Storms App layers

The above map uses the following layers:

  •  Recent Hurricanes, Cyclones, and Typhoons Observed Track, Position, and Wind Swath : Provided by NOAA, the National Hurricane Center, and Esri these layers display the distribution of recent events. Wind swath is not automatically enabled but may be toggled on using the layers widget.
  • Precipitation( GPM_NRT_30min_Latest ): This layer is the most recent available precipitation rate from the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrieval for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) Early run. With 30 minute temporal resolution, this layer provides precipitation rate in millimeters per hour in near real-time.
    • For the full collection of GPM IMERG Early Precipitation Rate, see the service   here  
  • Population Density ( Popgrid counts ): Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density contains layers for several years showing population density estimates (persons/square kilometer).
  • Ocean Surface Temperature ( analysis_ocean_sfc_sst_time ): This layer, displaying ocean surface temperature is important for monitoring conditions that lead to tropical storm formation. Provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Weather Service (NWS)/National Centers for Environmental Protection (NCEP) operational Near-Sea Surface Temperature (NSST) analysis and the NASA Short-term Prediction and Transition Center (SPoRT) experimental North American Sea Surface Temperature Composite. Sea Surface Temperature is shown in degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Imagery ( VIIRS Day/Night ): The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) layer in this map showcase both the near real-time (NRT) and event based capabilities of NASA GIS data. The VIIRS layer is NRT color imagery.

Visualizing Recent Tropical Storms

In addition to viewing tropical storm conditions in near real-time, NASA has created many GIS products to look at specific tropical storms. Below are a few examples of the different GIS visualizations available from NASA including near real-time monitoring tools, 3D models, educational resources, and satellite imagery of several hurricanes from the past few years.

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NASA's Applied Sciences Disasters program areaoffers a dashboard to monitor disasters including tropical storms around the world. Information including the name of the storm, location, and time is featured.

The Disasters program provides additional GIS products at the  NASA Disasters Mapping Portal - Hurricanes and Cyclones  .

The Disasters program also has many visualizations of hurricanes using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. The map  SAR Hurricane Monitoring for the Gulf and East Coast (Copernicus Sentinel-1, Alaska Satellite Facility)  uses data available through NASA's Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center (ASF DAAC) to identify areas of flooding during the 2021 hurricane season.

More GIS content from NASA and guides for understanding GIS may be found in the Earthdata  Geographic Information Systems Data Pathfinder  and the Earthdata  Tropical Cyclones Data Pathfinder .

Created by the Universities Space Research Association (URSA)/NASA  Black Marble Science Team , nighttime lights visualizations help to monitor changes in energy infrastructure in New Orleans, Louisiana and in other urban areas, during Hurricane Ida's landfall in August 2021.

All NASA Applied Sciences Disasters layers featuring Hurricane Ida may be found in  NASA Products for Hurricane Ida 2021 

Several GIS tutorials have been recorded and are available on YouTube showcasing how the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center's (GES DISC's) IMERG Early ArcGIS Image Service can be used to visualize Hurricane Ida. These demonstrations and other NASA GIS video content may be found in the  Earthdata GIS Resources YouTube Playlist.  

Eta and Iota are two hurricanes that hit Central America in November 2020. Using a combination of True Color and Natural Color imagery from the MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) aboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-2A/2B satellites, regions of flooding and cloud cover may be identified. These maps are a part of the NASA Disasters  NASA Products for Hurricanes Eta and Iota 2020 .

 Hurricane Laura Cloud Top Height : Using the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) aboard NASA's Terra satellite, the angular parallax of clouds in different views is used to derive cloud top height during Hurricane Laura while the satellite passed over the Gulf of Mexico in September 2020.

More information and visualizations of Hurricane Laura may be found in  NASA Products for Hurricane Laura 2020 

This  Cyclone Amphan  StoryMap uses the IMERG Late Run to explore the development of Cyclone Amphan in India and Bangladesh, May 2020.

More information and NASA visualizations of Cyclone Amphan may be found in the NASA Disasters app  NASA Product Gallery for Cyclone Amphan 2020 

 This 3D representation of precipitation in Hurricane Dorian  over the Bahamas in September 2019 was created using GPM IMERG data.

More information on Hurricane Dorian and more visualizations of this storm can be found in the  Hurricane Dorian 2019   StoryMap.

Hurricane Dorian is further explored with NASA data in  Revisiting Hurricane Dorian. 

 Hurricanes as Heat Engines : A StoryMap created by myNASAdata as a lesson for students to understand the evolution of hurricanes over the ocean using various NASA data products.

Citations

Tropical Storms Web Map Datasets

  • NOAA, NHC, Esri (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Hurricane Center/Esri)
  • Huffman, G.J., E.F. Stocker, D.T. Bolvin, E.J. Nelkin, & J. Tan (2019). GPM IMERG Early Precipitation L3 Half Hourly 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V06, Greenbelt, MD, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC)   doi:10.5067/GPM/IMERG/3B-HH-E/06  
  • NASA Precipitation Measurement Missions (PMM) Science Team, The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, NASA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. (2018). Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. Palisades, NY: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC).   doi:0.7927/H49C6VHW  .
  • Bolten, J. D., W.T. Crow, X. Zhan, C. Reynolds, & T.J. Jackson (2009), Assimilation of a satellite-based soil moisture product in a two-layer water balance model for a global crop production decision support system. Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Hydrologic Applications, pp. 449–463, Springer, Berlin. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-71056-1_23
  • Bolten, J. D., W. T. Crow, T. J. Jackson, X. Zhan, & C. A. Reynolds (2010), Evaluating the utility of remotely-sensed soil moisture retrievals for operational agricultural drought monitoring. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 3(1): 57–66. doi:10.1109/jstars.2009.2037163
  • Bolten, J. D. & W. T. Crow (2012). Improved prediction of quasi-global vegetation using remotely-sensed surface soil moisture. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(19). doi:10.1029/2012gl053470
  • Sazib, N., I. Mladenova, & J. Bolten. (2018) Leveraging the Google Earth Engine for Drought Assessment Using Global Soil Moisture Data. Remote Sensing, 10(8): 1265. doi:10.3390/rs10081265
  • Goddard Space Flight Center SMAP Team
  • Jedlovec, G.J., F. LaFontaine, J. Shafer, J. Vazquez, E. Armstrong, & M. Chin. (2009). An Enhanced MODIS / AMSR-E SST Composite Product, GHRSST User Symposium, Santa Rosa, CA.
  • NASA (2014), Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Product Details (Available at  http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/sport/sst/descriptions.html ).
  • National Weather Service (NWS) (2001). The Real-Time Global Sea Surface Temperature Analysis: RTG_SST, NWS Technical Procedures Bulletin Series No. 477, NWS, Silver Spring, MD (Available at  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/tpb/477.pdf )
  • NWS (2020). EMC's Near Surface Sea Surface Temperature (NSST) (Available at  https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/emc/pages/numerical_forecast_systems/sst.php )

Disasters Dashboard and SAR

  • Alaska Satellite Facility, ESA Copernicus Sentinel-1.
  • RTC and RGB products processed by ASF DAAC HyP3 2021 using GAMMA software. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA.

Huricane Ida

Hurricane Laura

  • NASA Disasters Program
  • Credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL-Caltech, MISR Team, Esri 3D Team
  • These data were captured during Terra orbit 110024. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Terra spacecraft is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. The MISR data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center, Hampton, Virginia. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Hurricanes Eta and Iota

  • NASA Disasters Program

Cyclone Amphan

  • GES DISC, NASA
  • Huffman, G.J., E.F. Stocker, D.T. Bolvin, E.J. Nelkin, & J. Tan (2019). GPM IMERG Late Precipitation L3 1 day 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V06, Edited by Andrey Savtchenko, Greenbelt, MD, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), Accessed: 4/28/22,  doi:10.5067/GPM/IMERGDL/DAY/06 

Hurricane Dorian

  • GES DISC, NASA
  • Huffman, G.J., E.F. Stocker, D.T. Bolvin, E.J. Nelkin, & J. Tan (2019). GPM IMERG Late Precipitation L3 1 day 0.1 degree x 0.1 degree V06, Edited by Andrey Savtchenko, Greenbelt, MD, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), Accessed: 4/28/22,  doi:10.5067/GPM/IMERGDL/DAY/06 

Hurricanes as Heat Engines