Heavy rains fell over southwestern Iran between January 5 and January 12, 2004, along the western side of the Zagros Mountains in the western part of the country. At least six people were reported killed as a result of flash flooding in the province of Fars near the city of Shiraz.
The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center monitors rainfall over the global tropics. MPA rainfall totals show up to a foot of rain (dark red area) may have fallen from the northeastern Persian Gulf into the south-central Zagros Mountains for the period 5-12 January, 2004. The bulk of the rain fell on the 10th and 11th in association with a frontal system advancing in from the west. Lesser amounts of up to several inches (green areas) fell over Kuwait, southern Iraq and along the far northeast coast of Saudi Arabia.
TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.
Image produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).
