NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Oct. 14, 2008

The Short Life of Tropical Storm Nana


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Image Credit: NASA/SSAI/Hal Pierce Tropical storm Nana formed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on the evening of October 12, 2008 when it was named by the National Hurricane Center. Nana was the 14th named storm of the 2008 hurricane season and it was born about 925 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. By early morning on October 14, Nana was fading fast as a depression.

Nana was predicted by the National Hurricane Center to have a short life and weaken to a tropical depression on October 13 or early 14 October and she did. The image above was made using data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite that passed overhead on October 12, 2008 at 1410 UTC (10:10 a.m. EDT). The rainfall analysis derived from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments shows moderate to strong thunderstorms producing intense rainfall of over 50 mm/hr ( ~ 2 inches per hour) within the storm.

At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Oct. 14, Tropical Depression Nana was located near 18.4 north latitude and 43.3 west longitude, about 1,285 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. The depression is moving toward the west-northwest near 14 mph. Nana's maximum sustained winds had fallen to 30 mph and is expected to continue to weaken into a remnant low by the next day or two. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1007 millibars.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall.

Text credit: Hal Pierce, Rob Gutro/Goddard Space Flight Center