Cyclone Garry’s Strength Peaking In South Pacific [1]

Eurasia Review - 1/27/13

NASA’s Aqua satellite identified powerful thunderstorms around the center of Cyclone Garry as the storm continued to intensify over warm waters of the South Pacific Ocean. Garry has prompted warnings for the southern group of the Cook Islands.

When NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Cyclone Garry the AIRS instrument captured an infrared image of Garry’s clouds, providing temperature data to forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (whom forecast tropical cyclones in that region). AIRS, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument, showed that there was a large area of powerful thunderstorms where cloud tops were so high that they were as cold as -63 degrees Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius). Those thunderstorms were producing heavy rainfall over the open waters of the Southern Pacific Ocean.

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