NASA Catches Typhoon Trami’s Landfall in China

NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Trami during the time it was making landfall in eastern China and captured an infrared view of the storm.

Typhoon Trami made landfall late on Aug. 21, and the storm was captured in infrared light by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder/AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. The AIRS image, taken on Aug. 21 at 17:59 UTC/1:59 p.m. EDT showed that the most powerful thunderstorms were tightly wrapped around the storm’s center during landfall.

AIRS data also showed bands of powerful thunderstorms feeding into the center from the storm’s west and east. The western band stretched over eastern China while the eastern band swept over Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea as Trami made landfall. Cloud top temperatures in those bands of thunderstorms were colder than -63F/-52 C indicating strong uplift in the typhoon. Cloud tops that cold stretched high into the troposphere had the potential to drop heavy rainfall.

Typhoon Trami made landfall in east China’s Fujian Province (Thursday morning local time) with maximum sustained winds near 75 knots/86 mph/139 kph. At 2100 UTC/5 p.m. EDT on Aug. 21 it was centered near 25.8 north and 118.9 east, about 107 nautical miles west-northwest of Taipei, Taiwan. It was moving west at 15 knots/17.2 mph/27.8 kph. Trami was downgraded to a tropical storm at 5 a.m. local time, Aug. 22/5 p.m. EDT on Aug. 21, as it moved toward the Jiangxi Province.

According to China Daily, the Fujian Meteorological Center warned of flooding and mudslides. Xinhuanet.com reported that more than 6,000 people were evacuated and over 2,000 vessels were secured in the harbor before Trami approached.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued their final bulletin on Trami and noted that the typhoon is expected to erode due to the frictional effects of land and fully dissipate over land by the early morning hours of Aug. 23.