News: Medicane 2014

Medicane Storm 2014

CloudSat overpassed a rare medicane storm in the Mediterranean Sea on November 7, 2014 @ 1218 UTC. Medicane (Mediterranean tropical cyclone) is a type of storm with both tropical storm and extratropical storm characteristics. CloudSat overpassed just to the east of the center of circulation of this storm capturing the outer regions of high clouds and areas of light precipitation near Italy. Cloud top heights peak around 9-10 km. The storm moved over areas of Malta and Sicily bringing heavy rain and strong winds typical of a tropical storm strength storm.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured the infrared (IR) (Figure 1) image taken a few minutes before the CloudSat overpass (Figure 2) denoted by the blue line A->B).

Figure 1. MODIS IR imagery overlaid with CloudSat track (blue) (courtesy NOAA LAADS Web).

Figure 2. CloudSat overpass track (courtesy CloudSat Data Processing Center).

References:

MODIS imagery, LAADS Web, Retrieved November 10, 2014.

CloudSat imagery, CloudSat DPC, Retrieved November 10, 2014.

Wunderground Ground, Rare Medicane Hits Malta and Sicily with Tropical Storm-Like Conditions, Retrieved November, 11, 2014.