[NASA] Gravity Waves From Super Typhoon Sinlaku

[SpaceMan 0]

Earth Observatory

1. This is the hidden content, please

   • Sign In
   • or
   • Sign Up
2. This is the hidden content, please

   • Sign In
   • or
   • Sign Up
3. Gravity Waves From Super…

• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• Topics
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
• More Content
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
• About
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up

 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Atmospheric gravity waves generated by Super Typhoon Sinlaku are visible via mesospheric airglow in this nighttime image acquired with the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 satellite on April 12, 2026, Universal Time (April 13 local time).

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

In mid-April 2026,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

churned across the North Pacific Ocean and brought

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and flooding to the Mariana Islands. The storm reached “violent typhoon” status—the highest intensity on 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 used by the Japan Meteorological Agency and roughly equivalent to a category 5 storm on the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Sinlaku was one of only a handful of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of that intensity known to have occurred so early in the year in the region,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Sinlaku rapidly intensified over the ocean before its impacts reached land. Around the time of this strengthening, satellites began to detect that the typhoon’s effects also extended upward, into the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

The nighttime image above, acquired with the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 satellite, shows atmospheric gravity waves radiating from the typhoon. These waves, resembling ripples on a pond, were made visible to the sensor via

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in the mesosphere. Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

by sunlight during the day, later emit light to release excess energy.

The release of latent heat near the eyewalls of tropical cyclones is known to drive convection and the formation of tall cumulonimbus clouds. These “

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

” can rise out of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, and generate waves that propagate into the stratosphere and mesosphere above. An

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

revealed that gravity waves often occur around the time that storms are intensifying. Indeed, in the 24 hours prior to the acquisition of the image above, Sinlaku had

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

from a category 2 to a category 5 storm.

“We’re seeing waves propagating radially and upward, in a cone-like shape,” said

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates. Alexander was surprised to see well-defined waves in the mesospheric airglow above the storm. Winds in the upper atmosphere can dissipate the waves before they reach such high altitudes, Alexander explained, but relatively light stratospheric winds at the storm’s latitude in April 2026 may have helped preserve them.

A relatively low amount of moonlight was fortuitous, as well. The VIIRS 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 is sensitive to airglow in the mesosphere but also observes reflected moonlight. The Moon was about

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on April 12, so some light reflected off clouds in the troposphere was visible, but not enough to overpower the signal from the airglow.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Thermal energy from gravity waves produced by Super Typhoon Sinlaku was detected in the stratosphere by the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) instrument on NASA’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

satellite on April 13, 2026.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

Sinlaku’s gravity waves, in addition to appearing high in the atmosphere via airglow, were observed lower in the atmosphere by the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) instrument on NASA’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

satellite. The image above depicts thermal emissions from gravity waves in the stratosphere on April 13. The rippling pattern appeared in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

observations, as well, indicating the storm’s continuing effects on the atmosphere.

Observing atmospheric gravity waves, particularly those caused by tropical cyclones, goes beyond scientific curiosity. Practical implications could include improved monitoring of storm development. “We’d like to use gravity waves to tell us if a storm is intensifying,” Alexander said, “which can be difficult to know, especially over the open ocean.” A

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

satellite with the proper infrared imager would be able to observe gravity waves and track

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, she and colleagues have argued.

Furthermore, it’s critical to account for processes in the stratosphere in weather models, said Laura Holt, also a senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates. Stratospheric wind patterns are factors in long-term forecasts of the next Northern Hemisphere winter, for example, and tropical cyclones have a disproportionate influence because their sustained, intense convection drives prolonged gravity wave forcing of the stratosphere.

The effect of gravity waves even reaches into the realm of space weather. “For a while, people have seen signatures of hurricanes in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

weather,” Holt said. Gravity waves can lead to traveling ionospheric disturbances—large-scale ripples in plasma density—and in some cases

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, both of which can disrupt satellite signals and radio communications. “With space weather in particular,” Holt added, “a single event such as a tropical cyclone can be very important.”

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS day-night band data from NASA 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, and the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(JPSS), and AIRS data from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

Downloads

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

VIIRS: April 12, 2026

JPEG (2.89 MB)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

AIRS: April 13, 2026

JPEG (1.75 MB)

References & Resources

Hoffmann, L., et al. (2018)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Geophysical Research Letters, 45, 1692–1700. 

NASA (2018, October 22)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Accessed May 28, 2026.

NASA Earth Observatory (2026, April 14)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Accessed May 28, 2026.

Nolan, D. S. (2020)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 77, 1733–1759.

You may also be interested in:

Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

3 min read

The violent storm aimed at the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands and Guam in mid-April 2026.

Article

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

3 min read

The powerful storm lashed the northern edge of the continent with damaging winds and drenching rain as it made landfall…

Article

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

3 min read

Widespread flooding affected tens of thousands of people after cyclones Fytia and Gezani drenched the island.

Article

1

2

3

4
Next

Keep Exploring

Discover More from NASA Earth Science

Subscribe to Earth Observatory Newsletters

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Earth Observatory Image of the Day

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Explore Earth Science

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Earth Science Data

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up