Himawari-8 Low-level (7.3 µm), Mid-level (6.9 µm) and Upper-level (6.2 µm) Water Vapor images (above) revealed an interesting standing wave west/northwest of Tropical Cyclone Pola in the South Pacific Ocean on 26 February 2019. The long-lived wave first became apparent just before 0800 UTC, and persisted until about 2330 UTC.The... Read More

After previously reaching Category 4 intensity on 23 February, Super Typhoon Wutip underwent an eyewall replacement cycle (MIMIC-TC) and emerged to reach Category 5 intensity at 06 UTC on 25 February 2019 (ADT | SATCON) — becoming the strongest (and only Category 5) February tropical cyclone on record for the Northwest... Read More

Tropical systems over the western Pacific are in a region where surface observations are few and far between.  Imagers on geostationary satellites, such as the Advanced Himawari Imagery (AHI) on Himawari-8, shown above, capably track such systems, but sounders do a much better job diagnosing the atmosphere through and towards... Read More

VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) and Infrared Window (11.45 µm) images from NOAA-20 at 1502 UTC (above) and from Suomi NPP at 1552 UTC (below) showed Category 2 Typhoon Wutip in the West Pacific Ocean (southeast of Guam) on 21 February 2019. With Moon in the Waning Gibbous phase (at... Read More