The death toll from Burma’s devastating cyclone has now risen to more than 22,000 (BBC). Another 41,000 are missing three days after Cyclone Nargis hit the country, causing a huge tidal surge to sweep inland, according to state radio. The United Nations estimates up to a million could be homeless. Before coming ashore Nargis intensified into a powerful category four tropical cyclone with wind speeds estimated at 115 knots (132 mph).

Image Credit: Hal Pierce, SSAI/NASA GSFC. Click to enlarge

Nargis, the first tropical cyclone of the North Indian Ocean season, is shown in the image above when the storm was overflown by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite on May 3, 2008 at 0043 UTC (May 2 at 8:43 p.m. EDT). By this time Nargis had weakened to minimal hurricane force with wind speeds of about 70 knots (80 miles per hour).

Click to enlarge. Image Credit: NASA.

 In this image, a half ring of tall towers (highlighted in red) reveals areas of deep convection (e.g., thunderstorms) that are associated with the intense rainfall in the western eyewall that was seen in the previous image. These tall towers can be a sign of future intensification as they release substantial amounts of heat into the core of the storm. At present, Nargis has begun to recurve towards the east-northeast and has weakened slightly.