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 Date:
August 9-14, 2004
Photo
Title: Southeast soaked by frontal system, Bonnie, and Charley
(Click to view larger
image)
(View QuickTime
movie, 1.6 MB)
Description: A stalled frontal system along the eastern seaboard
and landfalls from Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley combined
to drench the southeast US from Florida up through the coastal midatlantic
region. First, a stationary front draped along the Appalachians
provided the focus for showers and thunderstorms from the Florida
panhandle up through the midatlantic. Next, Tropical Storm Bonnie
made landfall in the panhandle of Florida on the 12th of August,
2004 near Apalachicola after forming in the south central Gulf of
Mexico. Bonnie moved rapidly across north Florida and into southeastern
Georgia after coming ashore. The system was quickly sheared apart
and lost its identity as it made landfall. Finally, Hurricane Charley,
the most powerful hurricane to strike Florida since Hurricane Andrew
back in 1992, made landfall on the afternoon of the 13th of August
at Captiva Island on the southwest coast of Florida near Punta Gorda
after having crossed over Cuba during the night. Charley remained
a hurricane as it cut diagonally north-northeast across the Florida
peninsula. The storm then briefly re-emerged over the Atlantic before
making a second landfall on the Carolina coast. Charley finally
weakened into a tropical storm over coastal North Carolina before
racing northeast across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and back
out to sea. An upper-level trough was responsible for steering both
Bonnie and Charley rapidly off to the north and east.
The
Tropical Rainfall Measurement
Mission (TRMM) satellite is a joint mission between NASA and
the Japanese space agency, NASDA.
Credit:
Image courtesy Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA
GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA
GSFC).
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