Odile: The Still-Swirling Storm That Keeps on Giving, Bringing Torrential Rains and Severe Flooding Risks

The VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite captured the visible and infrared images of Hurricane Odile that make up this animation. Odile managed to maintain hurricane intensity — with the faint signature of an eye still visible — even after the storm spent several hours crossing the rugged terrain of Baja on September 15, 2014. Now, the remnants of the storm are bringing torrential rains and flooding from Arizona to Texas. (Source: CIMSS Satellite Blog) Heavy downpours from the still-swirling remnants of Hurricane Odile could bring life-threatening floods and mudslides from southeastern Arizona across southern New Mexico and into western Texas and the panhandle through Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. Flooding has already occurred in Arizona — just 10 days after Hurricane Norbert drenched the region, producing a record high single-day rainfall total in Phoenix. This also marks the first time in recorded history that two tropical systems have affected Arizona in such a short period of time, according to the weather service's Tucson office. Color infrared imagery from the GOES-East weather satellite this morning show large amounts of water vapor over the region: