Satellite data is helping scientists size up one of the most intense outbreaks of fire and smoke that Oregon and California have seen in decades.

NASA’s Aqua satellite analyzed a low-pressure area in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean, and it showed the system becoming more organized.

NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite provided an infrared image of Tropical Depression 20 in that helped confirm it organized and strengthened into Tropical Storm Teddy.

Teddy, which has broken a hurricane season record, is expected to become a major hurricane later in the week, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Tropical Depression 20 formed late on Saturday, Sept. 12 in the Central North Atlantic Ocean, about 2,030 miles (3,265 km) east of the Northern Leeward Islands. It maintained tropical depression status until this morning, Sept. 14, when infrared satellite data helped confirm it had strengthened and organized. NHC reported this makes Tropical Storm Teddy the earliest 19th named storm, besting the unnamed tropical storm on October 4, 2005.

Continue reading at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Image via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Tropical Storm Sally was deemed a hurricane on Sept. 14 just after NASA’s Aqua satellite provided data on the storm.

On Sunday, Sept. 13, NASA analyzed Sally’s cloud top temperatures to gauge if the storm was strengthening. Cloud top temperatures provide information to forecasters about where the strongest storms are located within a tropical cyclone. The stronger the storms, the higher they extend into the troposphere, and the colder the cloud temperatures.

On Sept. 13 at 2:35 p.m. EDT (1835 UTC) NASA’s Aqua satellite analyzed Tropical Storm Sally using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument. AIRS found coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as or colder than minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius) around the center and east of the center. NASA research has shown that cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.

Continue reading at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Image via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Night-time imagery from NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite showed Hurricane Paulette’s large eye approaching the island of Bermuda. A Hurricane Warning is in effect for Bermuda.

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The National Science Foundation awarded Dominic Winski $137,419 to reconstruct 1,500 years of summer climate and wildfire history in Alaska, western Canada and Siberia using an ice core from Denali National Park.

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