Tropical Cyclone Thane Rain, Radar, Satellite Images

UPDATE: (From Comments, thanks Varun) Follow photos, video and news of the storm here.

UPDATE: (From Comments, thanks Scott) Check out a cool animation of the two tropical systems here. This storm is also involved in a hoax about a storm system that stretches from India to the U.S. West Coast. More info at the bottom of this entry.

Here's something we haven't seen in a while... a "hurricane" in December. Technically, it's known only by the name "Tropical Cyclone Thane" will make landfall in southeast India today as a significant threat to lives and property. According to NASA TRMM, has dumped over two feet of rain in the last three days:

The storm has a clear eye on radar and satellite (the Indian Service Met Office appeared to be down due to traffic as of this posting, so the following radar image was borrowed from KEA Weather on Facebook).

Is this unusual? A little bit. The Indian basin's hurricane season is from April 1 to December 31 for the northern Indian Ocean (NOAA Hurricane FAQ), but NOAA says that only 5 hurricane-strength storms have ever existed in December. The following satellites are from the CIMSS Tropical Page and the U.S. Navy (Monterey) Tropical Page:

Another tropical cyclone is currently located to the south of Thane, click here for a cool animation of both.

By the way, Thane has been fingered as being part of a "half-way around the world" storm hoax on YouTube. The problem with this video is that it's neither "a storm system" or "a series of storms." What he's seeing is benign high clouds being moved across the world via the Jet Stream. This is not unusual, in fact the jet stream is always present and does encircle most of the world. If you look at the water vapor satellite shot below, you can see that all weather systems are constantly "connected." The atmosphere is just one sea of moisture.