Tropical Storm Beatriz
Yesterday evening, Thursday, 1 June 2017, Tropical Storm Beatriz made landfall in southern Mexico state of Oaxaca. The tropical storm brought heavy rains, flooding and mudslides to the area, resulting in 2 deaths as of Friday, 2 June 2017. Once deemed a tropical storm, turned back into a tropical depression soon after making landfall and is currently a remnant low. Flights were cancelled across the region where the city of Puerto Angel received 9+ inches of rain so far. The storm is moving slowly over southern Mexico, and high amounts of precipitation is expected across the region over the next few days.
Looking at the latest overpass from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) satellite, Beatriz is highlighted by one of the 22 spectral channels (i.e. Imagery Band 5 (I-5) (11.45um)) apart of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on-board Suomi-NPP. The I-5 band is an infrared band that detects the emissivities of the atmospheric phenomena and land/ocean surfaces (i.e. the amount of thermal energy produced by atmospheric phenomena and surface features, detected by satellite).
The image below describes the thermal energy detected by satellite via brightness temperatures in degrees Kelvin over the southern Mexico and Central America domain. The range of brightness temperatures are from 180K (-132 degrees F) to 320K (116 degrees F). The low to high clouds are seen via cooler colors (i.e. blue, light blue), while the land and ocean are seen via warmer colors (i.e. orange). One can see the location of tropical storm Beatriz as it made landfall in southern Mexico at 0711Z, 2 June 2017. There are also small storms located east of Beatriz along the Yucatan Peninsula.
*Sources: National Hurricane Center and The Weather Channel.