Almost every photo of a hurricane is from above. Which gives us a good idea of its diameter but leaves us with no impression of its height. Fortunately there is a new satellite in orbit called CloudSat. CloudSat is remarkable because it uses radar to penetrate into clouds and provide a cut-away view of what a hurricane might look like edge-on.

Take a look at the photo below. The top portion is the view of a category 4 Typhoon Choi-Wen. The red line marks the slice that CloudSat took as its orbit passed directly over and through the eye. The bottom image is the cut away view that CloudSat is able to produce from the data it gathers. Here I’ve done my own editing by placing a triangle that represents the height of Mt. Everest. You can see that Choi-Wen is nearly double the height of the highest peak on Earth. And the record cloud height that I could find, for hurricane Wilma, was 59,000 feet.

You can now see that hurricanes are not just impressive in their diameter but also in how emmensely high they are.

polyGeek hurricane, Meteorology

Just read Dr. Master’s blog about La Nina:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html
Don’t hate me because I’m excited about the upcoming hurricane season. It’s almost like the feeling of being excited about a favorite sports team’s upcoming season when big things are expected. You know, “they signed a few free agents, they got everyone back healthy, they had a very good previous season, so this coming season should be a whopper.” That’s what I feel like. Except with hurricane season its, “La Nina is going to reduce the amount of wind shear in the Atlantic, surface water temperatures are up, Global Warming is a real wild card.” Yeah, all the trends are pointing to some serious chop in the Atlantic and Gulf this year. I got my favorite sites bookmarked and I’m ready to watch it all unfold.

You know, maybe you should hate me after all. Either way, I can’t wait.

polyGeek Global Warming, hurricane