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PALOMA NOW A HURRICANE
Tropical Storm PALOMA which formed on 6 November 2008 has been upgraded by the National Hurricane Center to a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with wind speeds of 70 knots (80 mph) on 7 November 2008. Hurricane PALOMA is predicted to have additional strengthening and may become a dangerous category 3 hurricane before hitting Cuba. Hurricane PALOMA was seen by the TRMM satellite on 7 November 2008 at 0433 UTC (11:33 PM EST). At the time of this TRMM satellite derived image Paloma had wind speeds of about 65 knots (about 75 mph). It is evident from this TRMM satellite image that PALOMA was becoming a well organized hurricane with very heavy rainfall around a nearly circular eye. This rainfall analysis of the eye wall used Precipitation Radar (PR) data from the TRMM satellite.

Images and caption by Hal Pierce(SSAI/NASA GSFC)

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.