Another satellite captured the rate in which rain was falling within Tropical Storm Richard this morning. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite (TRMM) which is managed by NASA and the Japanese Space Agency flew over Richard this morning as dawn was breaking today at 1125 UTC (7:25 a.m. EDT).A TRMM Visible and Infrared image from this early morning pass was overlaid with rainfall derived from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TM) and Precipitation Radar (PR) instruments. A few powerful thunderstorms were dropping heavy rainfall, falling at as much as 2 inches per hour, near Richard's center of circulation when he was still Tropical Depression 19.
It didn't take long for Tropical Depression 19 to strengthen into Tropical Storm Richard this morning. In fact, at 5 a.m. EDT, Richard was still a depression. Before 11 p.m. EDT on Oct. 20, it was just a low pressure area known as System 99L.
At 11 a.m. EDT today, Oct. 21, Richard had maximum sustained winds near 40 mph, and those are expected to increase in the warm waters of the western Caribbean. Those tropical-storm force winds have a good reach, however, extending up to 105 miles from the center, mostly to the east of the center. Richard could reach hurricane status in the next day or two.
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