NASA MODIS Image of the Day: January 24, 2007 – Floods in the Southern United States
River systems throughout northern Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana were swollen with winter rain when the MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the top image on January 21, 2007. The National Weather Service had issued warnings of mild flooding on many of the rivers shown in this image, but by January 22, the high water had begun to subside. The floods followed a powerful winter storm that dumped heavy rain on the South, and ice and snow on the Midwest.
If you run your mouse over the image, you will see a second image that shows Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana on January 10, before the storm struck. Like the main image, the secondary image was made with both infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. In this type of image, water is black or dark blue, while plant-covered land is bright green and bare or lightly vegetated ground is tan. The city of Shreveport, Louisiana, is the grey area on the banks of the Red River. Clouds are pale blue and white.
