NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

This side-view image of Tropical Storm Beryl was taken from NASA's CloudSat satellite on July 18 at approximately 2:10 p.m. EDT (18:10 UTC).

The blue areas along the top of the clouds indicates cloud ice, while the wavy blue lines on the bottom center of the image indicate intense rainfall. Notice that the solid line along the bottom of the panel, which is the ground, disappears in this area of intense precipitation. It is likely that in the area the precipitation rate exceeds 30mm/hr (1.18 inches/hour) based on previous studies.

From one side of the storm to the other, Beryl appears to be approximately 800 km (497 miles). The scale from top to bottom is approximately 30 km (18 miles), so the clouds in this tropical storm reach heights exceeding 15 km (9 miles).

Image credit: NASA/JPL/The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), Colorado State University

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