Warnings are in effect for Hawaii, as Hurricane Lane threatens the islands with heavy rainfall. GPM, NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement observatory satellite flew over the Central Pacific Ocean on August 22, 2018, and analyzed rainfall rates and cloud heights.
At the time of the GPM pass, Lane was a category five on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale with winds of about 140 knots (161 mph). This analysis shows precipitation derived from data collected by the GPM satellite’s Microwave Imager and Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar instruments. GPM data showed that very heavy rain was occurring with powerful storms located in Hurricane Lane’s well-defined eye wall and moderate to heavy rainfall was also covering a large area extending outward from Lane’s eye.
Image Credit: NASA