TYPHOON CHANCHU PASSES THROUGH CENTRAL PHILIPPINES

Typhoon Chancu (known as Caloy in the Philippines) brought strong winds and heavy rains to the central Philippines as the storm passed through the mid-section of the country. Though not a particularly powerful storm, Chancu is so far responsible for 8 deaths, six of which occurred when a boat capsized while traveling between islands. Chanchu became a tropical depression on the 9th of May 2006 east of the main southern island of Mindanao. The system then organized into a tropical storm and moved west-northwest before making landfall on the island of Samar in the central Philippines on the evening of the 11th (local time) as a Category 1 Typhoon. Chanchun regained strength, briefly becoming a Category 2 storm, as it passed between the central islands before eventually hitting hit Mindoro island and weakening.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured these images of Chanchu as it was nearing the central Philippines from the east. The images were taken at 5:55 UTC 10 May 2006. The first image shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity as seen from the TRMM satellite. Rain rates in the center swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), a first-of-its-kind space-borne precipitation radar, while rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). TRMM reveals that Chanchu has a large, partial eye-wall west of its center (blue/green arc) and is very asymmetric with most the rain also west of the center of circulation (blue and green areas). Areas of intense rain (on the order of 50 mm/h) are shown by the darker reds.

The next TRMM image shows a 3D perspective of Chanchu using data collected from the TRMM PR. The higher tops are indicated in red. Deep convective towers that occur near the center of the storm can be a sign of strengthening. TRMM shows the Chanchu's towers exceed 17 km and are associated with the areas of intense rain visible in the previous image. At the time, Chanchu was a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds estimated at 55 knots (63 mph) by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

See LARGE [21 mb] Rainfall accumulation animation MAY 8-12, 2006
See SMALL [.4 mb] QUICKTIME ANIMATION of accumulation
See SMALL [.7 mb] MPEG ANIMATION of accumulation

TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Images produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).