July 2006 - Hurricanes

Image of the Month for July 2006

This type color enhancement is mainly used by the National Hurricane Center/ Tropical Prediction Center in Miami, Florida for television, newspaper, and internet displays. The temperature values listed on the image above are approximate values.

According to Tim Olander, a member of the Tropical Cyclone Research Team at the University of Wisconsin, "The temperatures refer to the temperature of the clouds at their tops... so the reds and whites in the enhancement are the colder cloud tops, while the greens are warmer and the blues are very warm or no clouds (black). Basically, the higher you go in the atmosphere (troposphere), the colder the clouds get."

You may wonder, as I did, how clouds can have temperatures way below freezing. Tim told me to read the article at
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/2004-02-05-answers-frigid-clouds_x.htm

According to the article, " The clouds are frozen, but as tiny, separate ice crystals floating together in the cold air. As soon as a water droplet or ice crystal grows large enough, it begins falling. It isn't able to hang around in the cloud and grow any larger."

Click here for the latest NHC Color-Enhanced Infrared Image of the Western Atlantic

Last modified on July 7, 2006