(Click to enlarge)	(Click to enlarge)

At least eleven people have perished and more than 10,000 have been evacuated in the worst flooding to hit Malaysia in over a decade. The hardest hit areas are along the east coast of peninsular Malaysia in the states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang. The city of Kota Baru was particularly hard hit. For Malaysia, December is part of the northeast monsoon. Prevailing northeasterly winds flow across the South China Sea bringing in abundant moisture. Typically, during the northeast monsoon, heavy rain events lasting on the order of a few days are common. The prevailing winds can interact with the topography squeezing out the moisture.

The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center monitors rainfall over the global tropics. The first image shows MPA rainfall totals for the period 7-13 December 2004. It shows that upwards of three feet of rain may have fallen along the east coast of peninsular Malaysia (darkest red area). The next image shows the accumulated rainfall with respect to the topography. The heaviest rainfall is colocated with the eastern slopes of the coastal topography (red area) indicating where the prevailing moisture laiden winds interacted with the terrain.


The final image shows the average rainfall within a 300 km radius of the point (5N, 103E) as a function of time. Two distinct rain episodes occur from the 7th to the 8th and from the 9th to the 12th of December 2004.

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).