Cimaron began as a tropical depression on the 27th in the central Philippine Sea several hundred miles east of the Philippines. The system quickly organized into the typhoon by the 28th and continued to intensify as it moved off to the west- northwest towards the northern Philippines. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite was placed into its low-earth orbit in November of 1997. Its primary mission is to measure rainfall from space; however, it has also served as a valuable platform for monitoring tropical cyclones, especially over remote parts of the open ocean. These spectacular images of Cimaron were captured by TRMM as the powerful storm was bearing down on Luzon. The images were taken at 05:40 UTC on 29 October 2006 not too long before Cimaron made landfall. The first image shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity looking down on the storm. Rain rates in the center of the swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), while those in the outer portion 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 Cimaron is in the process of undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle as evidenced by the distinct double eyewall structure. Cimaron's compact inner eyewall of intense rain (small dark red ring) is surrounded by a nearly complete outer eyewall of intense to moderate rain (concentric ring of dark red and green). This type of feature is only found in very powerful, mature tropical cyclones. Near the time of this image, Cimaron was a Category 5 super typhoon with maximum sustained winds estimated at 140 knots (161 mph) by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

The next image was taken at the exact same time and shows a 3D view of Cimaron courtesy of the TRMM PR. The TRMM PR is a one-of-a-kind space-borne radar that can obtain vertical precipitation structures. The image shows an almost perfectly uniform ring of deep convective towers (shown in red) at the heart of the storm. This feature is part of the inner eyewall. Due to the extreme cyclonic winds in intense storms, eyewall features tend to be smeared out and appear uniform. The outer eyewall is just beginning to emerge as seen by the deep towers on the backside of the inner towers in this image. Given time, the outer eyewall will intensify and contract and replace inner eyewall to complete the eyewall replacement cycle.

After crossing Luzon in the Philippines, Cimaron re-emerged over open waters in the South China Sea.

Click on "Load CIMARON OVERLAY" if you wish to overlay the image above of typhoon CIMARON using the GOOGLE EARTH program:
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