Tropical Storm Bolaven formed southeast of the Mariana Islands at 1200 UTC on 07 October 2023 (about 540 miles southeast of Guam, according to the initial advisory issued by JTWC). With sufficient illumination from the Moon (which was in the Waning Crescent phase, at 41% of Full), a nighttime Suomi-NPP VIIRS... Read More
Tropical Storm Bolaven has formed in the western Pacific and is moving towards the Marianas Islands. Were there satellite products useful in monitoring the atmosphere prior to the storm’s development? One such useful product is the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) that is on both MetopB and MetopC polar orbiters at this website (or this one). The stepped animation above, from... Read More
Target Sector (2.5-minute interval) JMA Himawari-9 AHI Clean Infrared Window (10.4 µm) images (above) showed Typhoon Koinu after it reached Category 4 intensity at 0600 UTC (SATCON) on 04 October 2023. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures (-80 to -89C, shades of violet to purple) were generally confined to the southern semicircle of the storm.... Read More
RADARSAT-2 and RCM-3 satellites had nearly simultaneous overpasses over Typhoon Koinu on 3 October 2023, as shown below. (See this blog post from 2 October for more on Koinu) Both SAR analyses showed the strongest winds (nearly 120 knots) in the southern eyewall of the storm, with long interesting wind minima features... Read More
