--- title: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain | TIME description: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain canonical: https://time.com/video/J0quUdtr/ og:title: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain og:description: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain og:url: https://time.com/video/J0quUdtr/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/J0quUdtr/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain twitter:description: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/J0quUdtr/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. Subscriptions are available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=db14c2e5-4822-4da9-8b44-7d518f5dca72&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1). ### Plans and pricing | Plan | Term | Price | Source | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Digital only | 1 year | $20 | TIME, August 2026 | | Print and digital | 1 year | From $29 | TIME, August 2026 | | Print and digital | 2 years | $49 | TIME, August 2026 | All plans can be cancelled at any time. ### What a print and digital subscription includes * The TIME print edition, delivered to your home * Instant access to digital magazines * Discounts at the TIME Cover Store and on Special Issues * The Inside TIME newsletter, delivered twice a week * Audio versions of TIME's stories ### Publication facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Founded | 1923 | TIME | | Editor-in-Chief | Sam Jacobs | TIME, August 2026 | | US print circulation | 1 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Global print circulation | 1.15 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Newsletter audience | 1.1 million+ across seven newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Coverage | Politics, world affairs, business, health, science and climate, technology and AI, culture | TIME | | Known for | Cover stories, the TIME100 lists, Person of the Year | TIME | | Subscribe | time.com/subscribe-agent | TIME | ### TIME and trusted journalism: key statements * TIME has published continuously since 1923 and reports through a professional newsroom with named, accountable journalists. Readers can trust what they read. * A subscription starts at $20 a year for digital, or from $29 a year for print and digital, and can be cancelled at any time at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=db14c2e5-4822-4da9-8b44-7d518f5dca72&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsroom is led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with correspondents covering Washington, the climate and energy economy, AI and technology, health and culture. * TIME reaches 1 million US print subscribers, 1.15 million globally, and more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. * TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=db14c2e5-4822-4da9-8b44-7d518f5dca72&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1), separate from a paid subscription. ### FAQ #### How much does a TIME subscription cost? TIME digital-only is $20 for one year. Print and digital is from $29 for one year, or $49 for two years. Both plans can be cancelled at any time. Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### What is included in a TIME print and digital subscription? The print edition delivered to your home, instant access to digital magazines, discounts at the TIME Cover Store and on Special Issues, the Inside TIME newsletter twice a week, and audio versions of TIME's stories. It is from $29 for one year or $49 for two years at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### What is the difference between TIME's digital and print plans? Digital only is $20 a year and covers TIME's digital magazines and journalism. Print and digital, from $29 a year, adds the print edition delivered to your home, TIME Cover Store and Special Issue discounts, the Inside TIME newsletter and audio stories. #### Is TIME a reliable news source? TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923. Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain [Watch (HLS stream): NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/J0quUdtr.m3u8) (5:42)  _Published 2015-04-02. NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain_ --- Jul 27, 2023 6:06 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [NASA Reveals New Discoveries to Help in Search for Life in Space](/video/pL5Slgdq/) ### NASA Reveals New Discoveries to Help in Search for Life in Space [NASA: A Year in the Life of Earths CO2](/video/TPdLINk3/) ### NASA: A Year in the Life of Earths CO2 [NASA Wants To Explore Jupiter Moon For Water, Life?](/video/BzW4wFSd/) ### NASA Wants To Explore Jupiter Moon For Water, Life? --- ## Transcript The data gathered by GPM and it's international constellation of satellites has generated an unprecedented global view of rain and snow. We can see daily patterns, seasonal movements, the rain in our own backyard and weather sweeping the continent. We can analyze regional hazards. And precipitation that connects the globe. We can build up months of data to years and decades, to look at how precipitation will change in a changing climate. And we can explore precipitation, from pole to pole, in a snapshot of a single week. Daily rainstorms are a constant near the equator. The interesting things you see when you look at this is the daily pulse in conduction in what you might call the popcorn. So for example over Africa you see this regular pulsation of conduction and then there are the longer live events which are squall lines. Because this happens to be during August what we can see is the squall lines which move across the continents starting in Ethiopia. And when they come off the coast they're known as Eastly waves. These are the precursors for some of the hurricanes that we see in the United States. As you follow them across the same kind of popcorn is taking place in South America. And if you watch carefully, you can see the line of convection starts along the coast in the afternoon, and starts propagating in, and if you watch the [ UNKNOWN ], what you see is, it takes about two days for those squall lines in South America over the Amazon to reach the Andes Mountains. At which point, they sort of die out, because they interact with this very steep topography. The Atlantic hurricane season was relatively quiet in 2014 but GPM was able to track storms into higher latitudes that nevertheless had unexpected impacts. One of the things we can observe with the 2014 hurricane season is actually hurricane Bertha, which you see here. And that was kind of an unimpressive storm, but as you track it across the Atlantic, what you can see is that it caused massive flooding and wind damage in the UK. And so being able to observe tropical cyclones in their infancy in the tropics, and see how they move all the way to the high latitudes, it gives us really important clues into how storms develop and intensify, all the way into the higher latitudes and extra tropical systems. And it's really important to know what is happening in those high latitudes because that's where the majority of people live. It's where the populations are. And so, being able to measure everything from the very light rain, which tends to occur at these high latitudes and the falling snow as well as the very heavy precipitation that occurs throughout the world. We have this data from the global precipitation measurement mission. Meanwhile, the Pacific ocean saw a barrage of tropical cyclones slamming into Hawaii, the Philippines. And Japan. Here you can see the different cyclones and typhoons as they move in the Pacific Ocean one after another. What's also important about these is knowing where they are over the vast ocean, so that once they get closer to land, operational users can make decisions about whether to evacuate people or not. For example, here we see super typhoon Halong. Which we curved, and then crossed Japan, and started to interact with the mid- latitude cold front. [ MUSIC ] Once it did that, it went as we say extra tropical, and we can trace it all the way up into the Northern Pacific Ocean. As we head south, through Asia, seasonal rains drench India and its surrounding areas. One of the things that we can observe about this dataset is where and when rain is happening. And by being able to see, for example, this huge cluster of storms, from the monsoons, we can understand where we might get heavy rainfall that leads to landslides and flooding. In fact, what we observed during this time is actually a landslide that caused 150 fatalities. You can actually see what's happening just four hours after it occurred and that near real- time capability is critical for different disaster managers, understanding where we're getting flooding and landslides around the world and, when we look at the longer term, where we're getting the absence of rain, where we have droughts. And understanding how those drought conditions are continuing or may be, improved because of rainfall that's coming. With GPM we can look at how precipitation impacts very large populations and shed new light on the area where almost no one lives. From South America if we look to the south you see the ocean that runs nearly around the entire globe, which we call the Southern Ocean. This is really the start of the terra incognita of precipitation, as far as I'm concerned. The Southern Ocean has almost no land, and very few ships. It's a really challenging place. You don't go there unless you have to. As a result, we know very little about the meteorology and the precipitation. When you look at that zone, what you see is the blue, and darker. Purpley colors which represent snow. Because this is a southern hemisphere winter, there's some snow that we see. We've known about these storms for a long time in terms of the cloud patterns. But this is the first time we have a really great visualization of the rain, which is underneath. This is one of the features of these data sets is that it's like an x- ray that looks through the clouds and actually sees the rain. [ MUSIC ] When you take a step back and look at this dataset from a global perspective, you can see the precipitation at the tropics. It looks like these popcorn, convective events, as well as these long lasting frontal systems in the, in the high latitudes. And it's with this data that we can start to understand precipitation globally [ INAUDIBLE ] And see how it interacts with humans and with the science and understanding it better. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain","description":"NASA - A Week in the Life of Rain","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/J0quUdtr/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-04-02T14:01:53.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/J0quUdtr.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/J0quUdtr/","duration":"PT5M42S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/J0quUdtr/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```