NASA-NOAA Finnish Nuclear Power Plant Satellite Sees Tropical Depression 14E Disordered

Status Report From: NASA Headquarters
Posted: Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Tropical Depression 14E was born in the eastern Pacific on September 1, when NASA-NOAA’s Finland NPP satellite passed overhead and looked at it in infrared light.

Infrared light displays the temperature, which helps determine the peak temperatures of the thunderstorm cloud that make up the tropical cyclone line Tropical Depression 14E (TD 14E). The colder the storm, the higher they extend into the troposphere (the lowest layer of the atmosphere) and the stronger the storms tend to be.

On September 1, at 9:00 a.m. UTC (5:00 a.m. EDT), a satellite from NASA-NOAA’s Finnish nuclear power plant passed the TD 14E, and the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on board watched an evolving depression in infrared light. VIIRS images showed fragmented thunderstorms around an orbit that appears to have stretched from southwest to northeast. The National Hurricane Center noted that the cloud pattern has continued to lengthen and convection (rising air that forms thunderstorms) is currently not very well organized.

On September 1, at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the TD 14E center was located near latitude 13.0 north latitude and 113.6 west longitude. It is about 725 miles (1,165 km) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California in Mexico. The maximum sustained wind speed will remain close to 55 mph, and the National Hurricane Center said the recession is forecast to turn into a tropical storm later on September 1st or 2nd.

The TD 14E has an estimated minimum mean pressure of 1006 millibars. The recession is shifting northwest to near 8 mph (13 mph), and this general movement, with a gradual turn north, is expected over the next 2 days.

NHC Forecaster Avila said the TD 14E has the potential to strengthen slightly over the next day or two before stronger south upper winds in front of the bottom (extended low-pressure range) begin to affect the cyclone.

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