NASA captures Monsoon rains bringing flooding to India

IMERG Calculates Monsoon Rainfall Over India.

The above average monsoon rains resulted in severe flooding in parts of India. The death toll of Kerala’s worst flood for more than a century has risen to 324.

Now, NASA has provided estimates of monsoon rainfall that affected India from Aug. 13 to 20. The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG is used to estimate precipitation from a combination of passive microwave sensors, including GPM’s GMI microwave sensor and geostationary IR (infrared) data. GPM is the Global Precipitation Measurement mission core satellite. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Agency, JAXA.

Gathered IMERG rainfall gauges for the 1-week period from Aug. 13 to 20, 2018 indicated two bands of heavy rain across India. The main band seemed significantly more extensive and reaches out over the northern part of the peninsula with week by week precipitation aggregates running from more than 120 mm (~5 inches) towards the western portion of the promontory to as much as 350 mm (~14 inches) over parts of the eastern half towards the Bay of Bengal. This first band is related with the general monsoon circulation.

The second band seemed concentrated and intense is firmly lined up with the southwest coast of India and the Western Ghats where onshore flow was improved by an area of low pressure embedded within the general monsoon. Weekly rainfall adds up to in this band are for the most part more than 250 mm (~10 inches) with embedded areas surpassing 400 mm (~16 inches). The greatest assessed an incentive from IMERG in this band was 469 mm (~18.5 inches).

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