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DEADLY HURRICANE NOEL
Link to image of tropical storm noel rainfall Tropical depression sixteen (TD#16) was upgraded to Tropical Storm Noel on the afternoon of Sunday 28th of October 2007. TD#16 formed about 160 miles south of Hispaniola on the 27th of October from an meandering area of low pressure that had once been part of an African easterly wave. Noel was the fourteenth named storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially runs through November. On average, there are 10 named storms every year in the Atlantic with 6 of those becoming hurricanes. The image above shows TD#16 when it was overflown by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (or TRMM) satellite on 28 October 2007 at 0200 UTC (1O:00 pm EDT). The system was already fairly well organized with bands of moderate to heavy rainfall (green and red areas, respectively) beginning to wrap in towards the center south of the Dominican Republic. At the time, Noel was moving toward the north-northwest with maximum sustained winds of around 30 knots (35 mph). Noel would go on to make landfall along the south coast of Haiti on the morning of the 29th (local time) with sustained winds reported at 45 knots (52 mph) by the National Hurricane Center.

Even before making landfall, Noel began to soak Hispaniola with heavy downpours. Despite the center of circulation passing over Haiti on the western side of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic located on the eastern side of the island felt the brunt of the rain. The storm's asymmetric structure with most of the rain occurring east of the center as well as southerly winds wrapping around that same right side of the storm combined to bring numerous showers and abundant moisture to the Dominican Republic.

Flooding and landslides from tropical storm Noel resulted in over 100 deaths and thousands of homeless people in the Caribbean. As a result the president of the Dominican Republic declared a state of emergency in that country. Rainfall totals over the south-central Dominican Republic were over 551 mm (over 21 inches) with much of that side of Hispaniola receiving at least 200 mm (~8 inches) of rain (shown in yellow). Click here to see some photographs supplied by Doreen Mahoney in the Dominican Republic showing flooding with tropical storm Noel. Rainfall totals over Haiti and Cuba were less with with totals over 200 mm (8 inches) in some areas. Tropical storm Noel produced over 500mm (20 inches) with heavy rainfall in the Bahamas.

The storms strengthened to hurricane force on 2 November 2007 with wind speeds of 65 knots (74 miles per hour) after passing northeastward through the Bahamas.




Link to image of extratropcial low noel The image on the right shows NOEL using data captured by the TRMM satellite on 3 November 2007 at 0436 UTC (0036 EDT). The National Hurricane Center issued its last advisory for NOEL on 2 November 2007 after Hurricane NOEL became an extratropical low. Meteorologists refer to tropical low pressure centers as warm cores because the air in the center of the circulation is warmer then the surrounding environmental air. Extratropical cyclones are typically cold core. The remnants of hurricane NOEL were still producing hurricane force winds when it caused serious damage and power outages along the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod, Massachusetts through Nova Scotia.




TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

Image by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC)
caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC)

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Curator: Harold.F.Pierce@nasa.gov
NASA Official: Dr Scott A. Braun
Last Updated: Monday November 5, 2007

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