A slow-moving frontal system brought persistent rains and flooding to the northeast US. So far 10 people have perished with 4 others missing as a result. First, a north-south oriented front that extended from Maine down to the Florida panhandle drew tropical moisture up along the eastern seaboard, including the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy, and brought rain up an down the east coast. The front then stalled just off of the coast, and an area of low pressure formed along the front just off of the Delmarva peninsula and resulted in a second round of heavy rains over the northeast.

In November of 1997, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite was launched in an effort to provide better estimates of rainfall over the global Tropics. Since that time, TRMM has been providing un-precedented estimates of rainfall over the Tropics using its array of passive and active sensors. The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center provides rainfall estimates over the global Tropics. MPA rainfall totals for the period 7-14 October 2005 are shown for the northeastern US. A wide swath of 4 (green areas) to 6 inches (yellow) of rainfall (dark red areas) extends from the central through the northern Appalachians, while parts of northern New Jersey and southeastern New York State received up to 8 inches (orange areas).

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).