Rita Brushes the Florida Keys and Heads into the Gulf of Mexico

After the immense devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina, all eyes are on Hurricane Rita as it passes the Florida Keys and threatens the Gulf of Mexico. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite is one of a number of satellites being used to monitor Hurricane Rita and storms like it. Launched back in November of 1997 to measure rainfall over the Tropics, TRMM has proven itself to be a valuable platform for observing tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes and typhoons. Rita formed from a tropical disturbance east of the Turks and Caicos Islands into a depression (TD #18) on evening of the 17 September 2005 (local time). The system moved west through the Caicos and strengthened into a tropical storm on the afternoon (local time) of the 18th before entering into the southern Bahamas. The first image (above) was taken by TRMM at 15:57 UTC (11:57 am EDT) on 19 September 2005 as Rita was passing through the southern Bahamas. The image shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity within Rita as obtained from TRMM's sensors. Rain rates in the center part of the swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), the only radar capable of measuring precipitation from space. The PR can provide fine resolution rainfall data and details on the vertical structure. Rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). At the time of the image, Rita was a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds reported at 55 knots (63 mph) by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). A well-defined closed eye is not visible in this image as Rita is still in the process of organizing. However, there is evidence of banding in the rain features southwest and northeast of the center (green and blue arcs), and an area of heavy rain is present on the southwest side of Rita's center (red area).