Topic: National Severe Storms Laboratory

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The National Severe Storms Laboratory is one of NOAA's internationally known research laboratories, leading the way in investigations of all aspects of severe weather. Headquartered in Norman OK, the people of NSSL, in partnership with the National Weather Service, are dedicated to improving severe weather warnings and forecasts in order to save lives and reduce property damage.

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/

How to Contact Us:

National Severe Storms Laboratory
1313 Halley Circle
Norman, Oklahoma 73069
405-360-3620
Contact Us: http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/contact.shtml

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http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

NOAA/ National Weather Service
National Hurricane Center / Tropical Prediction Center
11691 SW 17th Street
Miami, Florida, 33165-2149 USA

The National Hurricane Center is part of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction
http://wwwt.ncep.noaa.gov/

NOAA/ National Weather Service
National Centers for Environmental Prediction
5200 Auth Road
Camp Springs, Maryland 20746

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NASA Satellite Identifies the World's Most Intense Thunderstorms

A summer thunderstorm often provides much-needed rainfall and heat wave relief, but others bring large hail, destructive winds, and tornadoes. Now with the help of NASA satellite data, scientists are gaining insight into the distribution of such storms around much of the world.

By using data from the NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, a study published in the August 2006 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society identified the regions on Earth that experience the most intense thunderstorms. The strongest storms were found to occur east of the Andes Mountains in Argentina, where warm, humid air often collides with cooler, drier air, similar to storms that form east of the Rockies in the United States. Surprisingly, some semi-arid regions have powerful storms, including the southern fringes of the Sahara, northern Australia, and parts of the Indian subcontinent. In contrast, rainy areas such as western Amazonia, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia experience frequent storms, but relatively few are severe. Northern Pakistan, Bangladesh, and parts of Central Africa also experience intense thunderstorms.

"TRMM has given us the ability to extend local knowledge about storms to a near-global reach," said lead author Edward Zipser, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. "In addition to containing the only precipitation radar in space, TRMM's other instruments provide a powerful overlap of data that is extremely useful for studying storms."

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/intense_storms.html