The rare satellite view of Typhoon Surigae was actually a set of separate images, not one composite: a nighttime Suomi NPP view from early April 18, 2021, and an infrared view from NOAA-20 around midday April 19. The nighttime image revealed rippling atmospheric gravity waves around the storm’s eye; the infrared view mapped cloud-top temperatures. A third, separate image from Japan’s Himawari-8 satellite showed the typhoon at sunrise on April 19.
What the rare satellite views show
NASA Earth Observatory’s April 20, 2021 feature, “Surigae Stirs Up the Pacific”, presented two different views captured at different times. Treating them as a single image would obscure what each instrument recorded.
| View | Capture time | Platform and instrument | What it depicts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nighttime view | Early hours of April 18, 2021 | Suomi NPP, VIIRS day-night band | Nighttime scene in which atmospheric gravity waves appear as ripples radiating away from the cyclone’s eye. |
| Infrared view | Around midday April 19, 2021 | NOAA-20, VIIRS infrared | Cloud brightness temperatures, used to distinguish colder cloud structures from the warmer surface below. It is a data visualization, not a conventional color photograph. |
| GeoColor view | Sunrise, April 19, 2021 | Himawari-8, Advanced Himawari Imager | A separate GeoColor view of the storm east of the Philippines, published by NOAA NESDIS. |
Why the nighttime image looks unusual
The Suomi NPP image makes atmospheric gravity waves visible as rings or ripples around Surigae. Climate scientist Matthew Barlow of the University of Massachusetts–Lowell told NASA Earth Observatory: “The intense convection associated with strong tropical cyclones can generate gravity waves that propagate upward 30 kilometers or more in the atmosphere.” NASA likened their appearance to ripples in a pond, while noting that the atmospheric waves operate on a vastly different scale.
The infrared view answers a different question: how cold the cloud tops were. VIIRS infrared data represent brightness temperatures, allowing cloud structures to stand out against the warmer surface. The view’s colors encode data; they are not what a camera would see in ordinary visible light.
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How powerful was Typhoon Surigae?
Surigae, called Bising in the Philippines, became a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon on April 17, 2021. NASA Earth Observatory described this as the earliest date in the year that a Northern Hemisphere storm had reached Category 5 strength in modern record-keeping. That record claim is specific to Northern Hemisphere storms and the modern record period, not a statement about all storms everywhere or all historical eras.
The U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), as reported by NASA Earth Observatory in 2021, estimated peak one-minute sustained winds at 165 knots (190 mph / 305 km/h). This is an agency estimate, not a wind speed measured directly by the satellite image.
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Published central-pressure figures differ, and the available summaries do not explain the discrepancy. NASA Earth Observatory’s 2021 feature attributed 895 millibars to Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). NASA’s later GPM visualization page, released in 2022, instead lists 985 mb for JMA and 988 mb for JTWC. These are source-specific reported figures, not numbers that can be silently combined into one value.
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NASA’s GPM account says Surigae formed over the western Pacific on April 13, 2021, as the second named storm of that year’s Northwest Pacific season. It moved northwest toward Palau, intensified rapidly beginning April 16, reached JTWC’s peak estimate of 165 knots at 1800 UTC on April 17, then curved northeast and weakened offshore. NASA’s retrospective storm timeline and estimates are on its GPM visualization page.
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Surigae did not make landfall in the Philippines, but its outer bands brought heavy rain, gusty winds and coastal flooding. The impact totals differ by source and publication date: NASA Earth Observatory’s contemporaneous 2021 report said at least one person had died and nearly 100,000 people had been evacuated from coastal areas. NASA’s 2022 GPM retrospective lists 10 fatalities and eight people missing. The figures should be read with those attributions rather than treated as a single contemporaneous tally.
NASA’s IMERG rainfall visualization estimates that more than 300 millimeters (12 inches) accumulated over Palau between April 12 and April 25, 2021; NASA says local rain gauges recorded similar accumulations during that period. This is a period total for Palau, not a claim that every part of Palau—or every affected island—received the same amount. Details and the animation are on NASA’s Typhoon Surigae Rain Rate and Accumulation page.
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