Re: Odile - final rain report - TRMM satellite dying

Posted by Bret B on September 20, 2014, 9:20 am, in reply to "Re: Odile - final rain report"
187.148.41.119

Regarding Odile's (not Polo's) total rainfall accumulation, here is an analysis by the TRMM satellite people: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ And here's a screenshot of their graphic, showing the area offshore from us that got up to 33" of rain! That's according to the text in their post; the scale of the graphic colors only goes up to 480mm/19". I annotated La Manzanilla's position with an arrow. At our location, the graphic indicates we got between 40mm/1.6" and 80mm/3.1" of rain, up to 120mm/4.7" just a few miles away. My rain gauge reported 173mm/6.8" from Odile, so there is a bit of a discrepancy in the "ground truth". Oh well, questions about the TRMM data won't matter soon. (Check the link on their home page: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications_dir/trmm_fuel_status.html) The satellite has run out of maneuvering fuel and is expected to sink lower and lower until it reenters sometime in 2016. They will stop disseminating the various data products as they go out of calibration because of the changing altitude and orbital period. One more satellite I worked on at Motorola back in the '90s bites the dust!

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