Powerful tropical cyclones have developed recently on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. In the western Pacific, Super Typhoon Lupit is threatening the Northern Philippines within the next three days. This will be the third deadly typhoon to hit the Philippines in less than a month. A combined total of over 800 deaths have already been attributed to Typhoon Ketsana that hit in late September and typhoon Parma that passed over the Philippines on October 3rd.

At the same time, category five hurricane Rick formed on the other side of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico. Rick is predicted by the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, to weaken to a category one hurricane and pass over the Baja Peninsula within 48 hours.
NASA and the Japanese Space Agency manage the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, known as TRMM. TRMM has the capability to measure rainfall from space. The typhoon Lupit image was made from data received by the TRMM satellite on October 18, 2009, at 1535 UTC (11:35 EDT). At that time, Lupit was a category 4 super typhoon with wind speeds of about 132 knots (~152 mph). The TRMM satellite revealed that Lupit had a very well defined eye with very heavy rainfall in the northeast quadrant of the eye wall.


By 11 a.m. EDT on October 19, Rick's maximum sustained winds had decreased to 115 mph. Rick's center was located near 17.8 North and 111.6 West, only 80 miles south-southwest of Sorocco Island, and 370 miles south-southwest of Cabo San Lucas. Rick was moving northwest near 9 mph, and had a minimum central pressure near 958 millibars. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. (Credit: Hal Pierce, SSAI/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)