NASA's Amazing Weather Satellite

What hit Houston last February was one devil of an El Nino storm.

But NASA scientists had a loftier view, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker. They are calling just-released satellite images of the storm evidence of a dramatic change in how we gather and understand the weather.

For half a year, a NASA satellite named TRMM -- for Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission -- has been scanning the planet's mid-section, where most rainfall occurs. Its startling pictures already have scientists rethinking stormy weather.

"What we're seeing already is that there is a tremendous difference in oceanic storms from land storms," says TRMM project scientist Christian Kummerow. "The intensity is not nearly so severe over oceanic storms as it is over land storms."

Scientists don't know why. They also don't know why almost 95 percent of all lightning occurs over land, but the proof is in the pictures of lighting strikes around the world.

NASA and its Japanese partners had high hopes when they launched the weather satellite last November, but the images are clearer than expected, and they are providing more data than expected on El Nino, and on global warming.

The satellite may also get a more "down to earth" application, when the data is shared with local weather forecasters this fall.

"TRMM offers the only chance right now to look at the storms before they hit land," says Kummerow. "That will certainly be beneficial to the forecaster."

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