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Titan Sea and Lake Superior
Description Titan Sea and Lake Superior
Full Description This side-by-side image shows a Cassini radar image (on the left) of what is the largest body of liquid ever found on Titan's north pole, compared to Lake Superior (on the right). This close-up is part of a larger image (see Titan (T25) Viewed by Cassini's Radar - Feb. 22, 2007) and offers strong evidence for seas on Titan. These seas are most likely liquid methane and ethane. This feature on Titan is at least 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles), which is greater in extent than Lake Superior (82,000 square kilometers or 32,000 square miles), which is one of Earth's largest lakes. The feature covers a greater fraction of Titan than the largest terrestrial inland sea, the Black Sea. The Black Sea covers 0.085 percent of the surface of the Earth, this newly observed body on Titan covers at least 0.12 percent of the surface of Titan. Because of its size, scientists are calling it a sea. The image on the right is from the SeaWiFS project, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm. *Credit:* NASA/JPL/GSFC
Date March 13, 2007
Marjorie Townsend and SAS-1
Title Marjorie Townsend and SAS-1
Full Description Marjorie Townsend discusses the X-ray Explorer Satellite's performance with a colleague during preflight tests at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Townsend, a Washington DC native, was the first woman to receive an engineering degree from The George Washington University. She joined NASA in 1959 and later advanced to become the project manager of the Small Astronomy Satellite (SAS) Program. The satellite shown in the picture, SAS-1, was the 42nd in NASA's Explorer series, a family of small, simple satellites sent to perform important scientific missions for minimal cost. The first Explorer satellite launched in 1958, months prior to the formation of NASA, initiating a program of exploration that has continued into the twenty-first century. SAS-1 continued the tradition of crucial science projects by carrying the first set of sensitive instruments designed to map X-ray sources both within and beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Also known as Explorer 42 and the X-ray Explorer, it became the first American spacecraft launched by another country when an Italian space team launched it on December 12, 1970 from a mobile launch platform located in international waters off the coast of East Africa. It mapped the universe in X-ray wavelengths and discovered X-ray pulsars and evidence of black holes. The satellite was named Uhuru, which means freedom in Swahili, because it was launched from San Marco off the coast of Kenya on Kenya's Independence Day. In the 1970's the Italian Government made Townsend a Knight of the Italian Republic Order for her contributions to the United States-Italian space efforts. In 1990, Townsend joined BDM International Inc., as the director of Space Systems Engineering with the Space Science and Applications Division.
Date 12/02/1970
NASA Center Goddard Space Flight Center
Urban Signatures: Evaporatio …
Title Urban Signatures: Evaporation (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows evaporation rates predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. Evaporation is lower in the cities because water tends to run off pavement and into drains, rather than being absorbed by soil and plants from which it later evaporates. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-10
Urban Signatures: Evaporatio …
Title Urban Signatures: Evaporation (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows evaporation rates predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. Evaporation is lower in the cities because water tends to run off pavement and into drains, rather than being absorbed by soil and plants from which it later evaporates. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-10
Urban Signatures: Thermal Ra …
Title Urban Signatures: Thermal Radiation (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows outgoing thermal radiation predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. Cities are warmer, so they emit more longwave (infrared) radiation. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-16
Urban Signatures: Thermal Ra …
Title Urban Signatures: Thermal Radiation (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows outgoing thermal radiation predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. Cities are warmer, so they emit more longwave (infrared) radiation. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-16
Urban Signatures: Temperatur …
Title Urban Signatures: Temperature (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows average surface temperature predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-09
Urban Signatures: Temperatur …
Title Urban Signatures: Temperature (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows average surface temperature predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-09
Urban Signatures: Latent Hea …
Title Urban Signatures: Latent Heat Flux (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows latent heat flux predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. (Latent heat flux refers to the transfer of energy from the Earth's surface to the air above by evaporation of water on the surface, for a more detailed explanation see http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/energy/energy_balance.html). Latent heat flux is lower in the cities because there is less evaporation there. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-16
Urban Signatures: Latent Hea …
Title Urban Signatures: Latent Heat Flux (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows latent heat flux predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. (Latent heat flux refers to the transfer of energy from the Earth's surface to the air above by evaporation of water on the surface, for a more detailed explanation see http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/energy/energy_balance.html). Latent heat flux is lower in the cities because there is less evaporation there. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-16
Urban Signatures: Sensible H …
Title Urban Signatures: Sensible Heat Flux (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows sensible heat flux predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. (Sensible heat flux refers to transfer of heat from the earth's surface to the air above, for further explanation see http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/energy/energy_balance.html). Sensible heat flux is higher in the cities--that is, they transfer more heat to the atmosphere--because the surface there is warmer than in the surroundings. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-18
Urban Signatures: Sensible H …
Title Urban Signatures: Sensible Heat Flux (WMS)
Abstract Big cities influence the environment around them. For example, urban areas are typically warmer than their surroundings. Cities are strikingly visible in computer models that simulate the Earth's land surface. This visualization shows sensible heat flux predicted by the Land Information System (LIS) for a day in June 2001. (Sensible heat flux refers to transfer of heat from the earth's surface to the air above, for further explanation see http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/energy/energy_balance.html). Sensible heat flux is higher in the cities--that is, they transfer more heat to the atmosphere--because the surface there is warmer than in the surroundings. Only part of the global computation is shown, focusing on the highly urbanized northeast corridor in the United States, including the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.
Completed 2005-05-18
Canadian Smoke Invades the E …
Title Canadian Smoke Invades the East Coast
Abstract Smoke from multiple large wildfires in Canada blanketed the Great Lakes and eastern United States. The enormous smoke plume was almost 200 miles wide. The thick pall affected air quality from New York, to Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. and blocked the sunlight cooling the East Coast. The first image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 7, 2002. The second image comes from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on the Earth Probe Satellite.
Completed 2004-05-13
Canadian Smoke Invades the E …
Title Canadian Smoke Invades the East Coast
Abstract Smoke from multiple large wildfires in Canada blanketed the Great Lakes and eastern United States. The enormous smoke plume was almost 200 miles wide. The thick pall affected air quality from New York, to Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. and blocked the sunlight cooling the East Coast. The first image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 7, 2002. The second image comes from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on the Earth Probe Satellite.
Completed 2004-05-13
Canadian Smoke Invades the E …
Title Canadian Smoke Invades the East Coast
Abstract Smoke from multiple large wildfires in Canada blanketed the Great Lakes and eastern United States. The enormous smoke plume was almost 200 miles wide. The thick pall affected air quality from New York, to Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. and blocked the sunlight cooling the East Coast. The first image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 7, 2002. The second image comes from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on the Earth Probe Satellite.
Completed 2004-05-13
A Spaceborne Perspective on …
Title A Spaceborne Perspective on the Red, White, and Blue
Description Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed 225 years ago on July 4, 1776, lies in the center of this image from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR). This true-color view of the northeastern United States, taken from the instrument's nadir, or downward-looking, camera includes a fitting display of the reddish colors of soils, grayish-whites of urban areas and clouds, and blue hues of water. Larger cities, including New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and Washington D.C., are visible from upper right to lower left. The bright sands of the New Jersey shoreline and a pattern of highly reflective roads and bridges extend northward along the coast from Delaware Bay. A popular tourist destination for those wanting to avoid the crowds and main roads is the Coastal Heritage Trail, a 440-kilometer collection of historic and other points of interest developed by the National Park Service and the state of New Jersey. A portion of Pennsylvania's Appalachian Mountains are captured in the upper left corner. The effects of folding and erosion on these ancient, mostly sedimentary deposits are visible, and the reddish colors indicate ironstone and iron-rich sandstone. The southeast-flowing Susquehanna River cuts transversely across these folded formations toward the Chesapeake Bay in Havre de Grace, Maryland, where it provides 50 percent of all the freshwater entering the great estuary. The waters of the Susquehanna originate at Otsego Lake in New York and meander along 700 kilometers until reaching Chesapeake Bay and the sea. This image was acquired on October 11, 2000. It covers an area 334 kilometers x 328 kilometers. North is at the top. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. [ http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/ ]
Agricultural Fires in Washin …
Title Agricultural Fires in Washington
Description Fall has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means it?s harvest time. In the wheat fields of Washington and Idaho in the northwestern United States, scattered fires (red dots) burn through the wheat stubble. Because of the semi-arid climate of this region, wheat is an important crop, Washington is the third-largest wheat producer in the US, and Idaho is the eighth. Surrounding the tan wheat fields are the Cascade Mountains (west), the Bitterroot Range (east), and the Blue Mountains (south). Aqua MODIS acquired this true-color image on September 22, 2003. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS? maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Blizzards in the Western Uni …
Title Blizzards in the Western United States
Description A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC
Blizzards in the Western Uni …
Title Blizzards in the Western United States
Description A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC
Blizzards in the Western Uni …
Title Blizzards in the Western United States
Description A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC
Columbia Complex Fire
Title Columbia Complex Fire
Description In the southeastern corner of Washington, where the Blue Mountains slope down to the Snake River plain, a large fire was burning on August 23, 2006, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov ] satellite passed overhead and captured this image. Places where the sensor detected atively burning fires are outlined in red. The fire is the Columbia Complex Fire, and according to reports from the National Interagency Fire Center [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] on August 24, the fire was threatening residences, a watershed, and fisheries. The fire had burned 34,000 acres and was completely uncontained. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides images of the entire western United States at additional resolutions. [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1 ] NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Haze Over Eastern United Sta …
Title Haze Over Eastern United States
Description Haze hung over the U.S. East Coast on April 19, 2005, lowering the air quality in many eastern cities, though none reached the EPA's "Code Red" category?unhealthy?. In a few cities, the levels of ozone and particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter or larger entered the range of orange, which indicates the air could be unhealthy for people in sensitive groups, such as the elderly or people with respiratory conditions like asthma. This image of the area was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA?s Terra satellite and stretches from New York southward to North Carolina, encompassing several large Eastern cities, including New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. The grayish haze extends outward over the Atlantic Ocean (image right). For more on regional and national air pollution, visit the Environmental Protection Agency?s Air Now [ http://www.epa.gov/airnow/index.html ] Website. To read about how NASA satellite data help air quality forecasters to predict regional air quality, read the feature story A New IDEA in Air Quality Forecasting. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/IDEA/ ] Image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center
Haze over the Eastern United …
Title Haze over the Eastern United States
Description Air quality in the heavily populated mid-Atlantic region of the United States reached unhealthy levels on August 2, 2006, warned the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to trapping particulate pollution near the Earth, high heat, stagnant air, and humidity generate more ground level ozone, probably contributing to the filmy haze seen in this image. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image on the morning of August 2, as temperatures were beginning to climb. At the time, a high heat advisory was in effect for the region. The haze appears to be concentrated over the Atlantic Ocean east of Washington, D.C., but this may be an illusion. The white-grey air is easier to see against the dark blue water than over the green and tan land. A string of cement-grey cities, the most probable source of the pollution, line the coast in an arc from Philadelphia in the north to Virginia Beach in the south. However, like weather systems, air pollution can travel across the country, and some of this haze may come from locations farther west. Smoke from a few fires (red dots) may also be adding to the haze. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center.
Haze over the Eastern United …
Title Haze over the Eastern United States
Description Air quality in the heavily populated mid-Atlantic region of the United States reached unhealthy levels on August 2, 2006, warned the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to trapping particulate pollution near the Earth, high heat, stagnant air, and humidity generate more ground level ozone, probably creating the filmy haze seen in this image. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image on the morning of August 2, as temperatures were beginning to climb. At the time, a high heat advisory was in effect for the region. The haze appears to be concentrated over the Atlantic Ocean east of Washington, D.C., but this may be an illusion. The white-grey air is easier to see against the dark blue water than over the green and tan land. A string of cement-grey cities, the most probable source of the pollution, line the coast in an arc from Philadelphia in the north to Virginia Beach in the south. However, like weather systems, air pollution can travel across the country, and some of this haze may come from locations farther west. Smoke from a few fires (red dots) may also be adding to the haze. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center.
Heatwave in the Western Unit …
Title Heatwave in the Western United States
Description The oppressive heat that crept over parts of the western United States during the first few days of July 2007 [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14380 ] took hold of the entire West during the week of July 4 through July 11. Deep red tones blanket every western state in this land surface temperature image, an indication that temperatures were warmer than in previous years. The image was made with data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite and shows temperatures recorded between July 4 and July 11, 2007, compared to the average of temperatures observed during the same period in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Areas that are warmer than during that three-year period are red, while cooler areas are blue. Triple-digit temperatures broke or matched records from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Great Falls, Montana, during this period. In this image, a cluster of red-black over eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and eastern Montana indicates that these regions experienced much warmer temperatures than in previous years. Western South Dakota (the Black Hills region) was also exceptionally warm. On the other end of the scale, Texas was much cooler than it had been in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Heavy rains pounded Texas on and off throughout this period, contributing to wide-spread flooding. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14363 ] You can download a global KMZ file of Land Surface Temperature anomaly [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/kansas_ast_2007187.kmz ] suitable for use with Google Earth. [ http://earth.google.com/ ] NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained courtesy of the MODIS Land Processes [ http://modis-land.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] team.
Heatwave in the Western Unit …
Title Heatwave in the Western United States
Description Extreme heat lingered over much of the western United States in early July 2007. Temperatures soared to triple digits, meeting or breaking records from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Great Falls, Montana, said news reports. The oppressive heat contributed to creating prime fire conditions, so that, when dry thunderstorms (lightning storms accompanied by little or no rain) rolled through on July 7, lightning sparked dozens of fast-moving wildfires. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14358 ] This image, created from data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite from June 26 though July 3, 2007, shows land surface temperatures compared to average temperatures observed during the same period in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Deep red across the Southwest and the Intermountain West indicate that temperatures were much higher than they were in 2000-2002. The Southeast also experienced warmer temperatures. Northern California, Oregon, and Washington appear to be cooler than in previous years, as indicated by the blue tones. The heat wave started mid-way through the week-long period shown in this image. While temperatures may have soared at the end of the period, cooler temperatures earlier in the week dominate the signal. Land surface temperatures from July 4-11 [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14393 ] show that these areas warmed significantly the following week. The Southern Plains are dark blue where temperatures were much cooler than they had been in previous years. During this period, torrential rains drenched the region, causing wide-spread flooding in Texas and Oklahoma [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14363 ] and in Kansas and Missouri. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14383 ] The gray region over Kansas and Oklahoma is an area in which MODIS could not record the land's temperature because of perpetual cloud cover during the week-long period. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained courtesy of the MODIS Land Processes [ http://modis-land.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] team.
Heavy Rain in the Mid-Atlant …
Title Heavy Rain in the Mid-Atlantic States
Description From June 23 to June 26, heavy downpours pounded the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, including the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. At one point, the primary interstate highway circling the city, the Capital Beltway, was closed after a mudslide covered the road. Other roads in the region were also closed as a result of widespread flash flooding. The rains fell as a steady stream of very moist tropical air was channeled up the East Coast from the South. The air stalled over the Mid-Atlantic region, where it was continuing to produce heavy rain as of June 26. This image shows an estimate of rainfall totals for June 23 through June 26. The heaviest rainfall totals for the period (shown in red) were around 6 inches, occurring over Maryland's Eastern Shore (east of the Chesapeake Bay) and central Delaware. Locally, 10 to 12 inches of rain was reported in Federalsburg, Maryland, which falls within the dark red region in eastern Maryland. Other areas of heavy rain are evident northwest of Baltimore between the city and the eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, over north-central North Carolina, and in parts of Virginia and southern New Jersey. The rainfall totals in this image are from the near-real-time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to monitor rainfall over the global tropics. The MPA uses rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite (TRMM [ http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ]) to calibrate rainfall estimates from other satellites. TRMM was launched in 1997 to measure rainfall over the global tropics. The satellite uses a combination of passive microwave and active radar sensors to detect rain, and these estimates of rainfall totals can be used to calibrate rainfall estimates from other satellites. 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).
Heavy Rain in the Mid-Atlant …
Title Heavy Rain in the Mid-Atlantic States
Description After six days of torrential rain, the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States got a break on June 29, 2006. Skies were mostly clear when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image at noon Eastern Daylight Time. The image shows the region around Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, including the northern half of the Chesapeake Bay. The cities are cement grey, blending with the murky color of the water flowing through the Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers and into the bay. The rivers are a muddy brown after swollen creeks and run-off swept sediment into their waters. Red boxes outline three fires MODIS detected in the region. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC
Heavy Rain in the Mid-Atlant …
Title Heavy Rain in the Mid-Atlantic States
Drought in the Southern Unit …
Title Drought in the Southern United States
Description Rainfall across the United States in the winter of 2005-06 has shown the classic pattern of a La Niña event. La Niña is a climate anomaly (departure from average conditions) that consists of cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the central and eastern Pacific and warmer-than-average SSTs over the western Pacific. Changes in the atmospheric circulation occur during La Niña events, as well. These combined ocean-atmosphere changes are likely responsible for the drought in the Southwest, the South, the central Plains, and Florida that has led to several devastating wildfires this season. This image shows where daily rainfall was above and below average in the United States between October 2005 and January 2006 compared to the eight-year average for that time frame. Places where rainfall was above average are in blue and green, while places rainfall was below average are in orange and red. The data are from the Tropical-Rainfall-Measuring-Mission-based, near-real-time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The Pacific Northwest (green and blue areas), especially along the coast and over the coastal ranges of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington (blue areas) received more precipitation than usual. Almost the entire rest of the country, barring New England, had below-normal rainfall. The most intense rainfall deficits (orange and red areas) include the area stretching from Texas up through the central Plains and Upper Midwest, as well as the Gulf Coast, most of Florida, and along the southern Atlantic coast. In the Southwest, the rainfall deficit added to the stress of several years of below-average rainfall. Most of Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, and central Oklahoma have received less than 25 percent of their normal rainfall for the period. The current La Niña is expected to persist for the next several months. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite was launched in November 1997. It measures rainfall over the global tropics using both passive and active sensors, including the first precipitation radar in space. 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).
Hurricane Katrina
Title Hurricane Katrina
Description Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ]
Hurricane Katrina
Title Hurricane Katrina
Description Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ]
Hurricane Katrina
Title Hurricane Katrina
Description Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. Images and movie courtesy of NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Caption details provided by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory), David J. Diner, Mike Garay and Ralph Kahn (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Greg McFarquhar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)., MISR stereo-height estimates (not shown here) indicate that the highest clouds reach 18-19 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. The stereo anaglyph shows relative height variations and enhances the appearance of thin clouds, such as those that mark the series of gravity waves north-east of the eyewall. Atmospheric gravity waves are caused by air displacements in an otherwise stable air layer. In this case, the gravity waves are above the hurricane arms in the upper troposphere, and were probably generated as the towering storm updraft tried to push into the stable air between the troposphere and the stratosphere (known as the tropopause). Some of Katrina's cloud tops were about 2 kilometers above the tropopause. Such high "overshooting tops" are also characteristic of strong and rapidly growing storms. The animation progresses from MISR's most forward-pointing camera, which views the scene first, to the most backward-pointing camera, which views the scene last. It was created by aligning the views from all 9 cameras using the high clouds within the eyewall as a reference point. North is at the top. The convective cloud towers, especially those along the eastern sides of the inner and outer eyewalls, attain the highest altitudes and indicate that the storm is strengthening. Those areas that do not exhibit cloud-top convection are clouds experiencing vertical wind shear, and tend to be lower than the towering cloud structures. The vertical and horizontal development of the convective clouds and the formation of an outer ring of growing clouds (referred to as an "eyewall replacement cycle") also indicate rapid strengthening. During this stage of hurricane development, an outer band of clouds may gradually move inward to replace the existing hurricane eyewall, causing the central pressure to increase and weaken the storm in the short term. However, eyewall replacement may sometimes be a forerunner for rapid strengthening in the longer term. This was the case with Hurricane Katrina, whose central pressure increased slightly on Saturday, but then dropped again significantly on Sunday when Katrina became a Category 5 storm. Observing the development of a concentric eyewall at this spatial and temporal resolution is a unique feature of these MISR observations. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees North and 82 degrees South latitude every nine days. The still images each cover an area of about 827 kilometers by 380 kilometers, and the animation covers an area of about 202 kilometers by 214 kilometers. The data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbit 30280 and utilize data from blocks 69 to 74 within World Reference System-2 path 17. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's, This image and animation from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday, August 27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico. Over 7 minutes during which all 9 MISR cameras viewed Katrina, the animation captures the cloud-top sides, the counterclockwise rotation of the eyewall, and the bubbling growth of the towering cloud structures. At this time, Katrina was undergoing rapid development— it had just been upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, and within 24 hours it would reach Category 5. On Monday morning when the eyewall made landfall over the United States, it was a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful and destructive storms on record for the Atlantic Basin. The image above is a false-color view (near-infrared, red, and blue wavelengths of reflected light displayed as red, green and blue) from MISR's nadir (pointing straight down) camera. In the image above, north is up. The high resolution image linked above shows a wider view of this false-color image, with north to the left. The vegetated Alabama coast in the upper left-hand corner in this high-resolution image appears in red hues. The bottom panel in the high-resolution image is a 3-D stereo anaglyph created with red band data from MISR's 70-degree-forward-viewing and 60-degree-forward-viewing cameras, displayed as red and green/blue, respectively. To observe the height variations in 3-D, you will need to use red/blue glasses. [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/Help/VendorList.html#Glasses ]
El Nino Rainfall Patterns ov …
Title El Nino Rainfall Patterns over the United States
Description An anomalous warming of the central and eastern Pacific along the equator is part of a well-known climate event called El Niño. An El Niño began in the spring of 2006 and reached its peak in November and December. El Niño has far reaching effects. The anomalous warming of sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific affects general atmospheric circulation patterns, which impacts both temperature and precipitation patterns well into middle latitudes. Deviations in the rainfall patterns across the United States due to El Niño are well-established based on past events. The northern Gulf Coast experiences above-average rainfall, as do California and the Southwest due to a stronger-than-average subtropical jet stream. The Ohio Valley and the Northwest tend to see below-normal rainfall. These deviations from the normal rainfall pattern are illustrated in this image, made from the near-real-time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA), which is produced at NASA&#8217s Goddard Space Flight Center, based in part on data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM [ http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ]) satellite. MPA rainfall anomalies across the United States are shown here for December 25, 2006, through January 25, 2007. The anomalies are obtained by subtracting the average rainfall from the recent values. The average rainfall measurements are based on data collected since TRMM's launch in November 1997. Several of the notable features associated with El Niño are evident. The northern Gulf Coast west of Florida is wetter than average as is southern California. The Four Corners region in the Southwest is also very moist, which is typical for El Niño. Drier-than-normal conditions are evident over the Ohio Valley. There are some exceptions to the expected El Niño rainfall patterns, however. Montana, for example, is usually drier than average during El Niño but appears relatively moist, and Florida is usually wetter than average but shows below-normal rainfall for the period. Also, the dry anomaly in the Northwest is concentrated over northern California instead of spreading over Washington and Oregon as might be expected. 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).
Fires Across the United Stat …
Title Fires Across the United States
Description This expansive image of the United States was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on NASA?s Terra and Aqua satellites. The left hand portion of the image comes from Aqua MODIS observations captured on the afternoon of October 22, 2003, while the right hand part of the image is from Terra MODIS observations captured a few hours earlier. Several geographic regions are experiencing fires, which were detected by the sensors and are marked with red dots. At upper left, fires are still burning across the Northern Rockies, the highest concentration is in Idaho, with additional fires in Montana to its east, and southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, to the west. In the Southwest, fires are burning in southern California near Los Angeles (gray patch right at edge of image to the north of the Baja Peninsula), as well as in the arc of mountains running through Arizona. At top center, fires are scattered across the northern Great Plains, from North Dakota and across the United States? border into Canada. Far to the south, dozens more fires are burning in the Mississippi River Valley in Mississippi (against right edge), Louisiana (to the west) and Arkansas (north of Louisiana). The high-resolution image provided above is 2 kilometers per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS? maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Fires Across the United Stat …
Title Fires Across the United States
Description This expansive image of the United States was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on NASA?s Terra and Aqua satellites. The left hand portion of the image comes from Aqua MODIS observations captured on the afternoon of October 22, 2003, while the right hand part of the image is from Terra MODIS observations captured a few hours earlier. Several geographic regions are experiencing fires, which were detected by the sensors and are marked with red dots. At upper left, fires are still burning across the Northern Rockies, the highest concentration is in Idaho, with additional fires in Montana to its east, and southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, to the west. In the Southwest, fires are burning in southern California near Los Angeles (gray patch right at edge of image to the north of the Baja Peninsula), as well as in the arc of mountains running through Arizona. At top center, fires are scattered across the northern Great Plains, from North Dakota and across the United States? border into Canada. Far to the south, dozens more fires are burning in the Mississippi River Valley in Mississippi (against right edge), Louisiana (to the west) and Arkansas (north of Louisiana). The high-resolution image provided above is 2 kilometers per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS? maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Fires Across the Western Uni …
Title Fires Across the Western United States
Description Days of record heat made the western United States tinder dry in early July 2007. Numerous wildfires raced across the dry terrain during the weekend of July 7. From Washington to Arizona, firefighters were battling fast-moving wildfires that threatened residences, businesses, gas wells, coal mines, communications equipment, and municipal watersheds. This image of the West was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite on Sunday, July 8. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are marked in red. Some of the largest blazes are labeled. Utah's Milford Flat was the largest, according to the July 9 morning report from the National Interagency Fire Center, [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] the blaze was more than 280,000 acres, having grown more than 124,000 acres in the previous 24 hours. The fires have destroyed homes, forced evacuations, shut down trains and highways, and killed several people. Weather conditions were not expected to improve significantly across much of the area for several days, with hot temperatures and dry thunderstorms (lightning and winds, but little rain) likely in many places. Nearly the entire western United States was experiencing some level of drought as of July 3, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. [ http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html ] The drought had reached the "extreme" category in southern California and western Arizona, and ranged from moderate to severe across most of the rest of the Southwest and Great Basin. The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/ ] images of the region in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that makes burned terrain appear brick red. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Fires Across Western United …
Title Fires Across Western United States
Description Days of record heat made the western United States tinder dry in early July 2007. Numerous wildfires raced across the dry terrain during the weekend of July 7. From Washington to Arizona, firefighters were battling fast-moving wildfires that threatened residences, businesses, gas wells, coal mines, communications equipment, and municipal watersheds. This image of the West was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite on Sunday, July 8. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are marked in red. Some of the largest blazes are labeled. Utah's Milford Flat was the largest, according to the July 9 morning report from the National Interagency Fire Center, [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] the blaze was more than 280,000 acres, having grown more than 124,000 acres in the previous 24 hours. The fires have destroyed homes, forced evacuations, shut down trains and highways, and killed several people. Weather conditions were not expected to improve significantly across much of the area for several days, with hot temperatures and dry thunderstorms (lightning and winds, but little rain) likely in many places. Nearly the entire western United States was experiencing some level of drought as of July 3, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. [ http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html ] The drought had reached the "extreme" category in southern California and western Arizona, and ranged from moderate to severe across most of the rest of the Southwest and Great Basin. The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/ ] images of the region in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that makes burned terrain appear brick red. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Record Rain over the U.S. No …
Title Record Rain over the U.S. Northwest
Description Record rainfall fell over parts of the northwestern United States during the first week of November 2006. Stampede Pass in western Washington received 8.22 inches of rain on Monday, November 5, to set a new all-time, one-day total. Six rivers reached record crests in the region. By early on November 8, one person had died, and two were missing as a result of the flooding, said news reports. This image shows rainfall totals for October 31 through November 8, 2006, based in part on data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. According to the TRMM-based, near-real time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis produced at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the highest rainfall totals for the period are near 250 millimeters (~10 inches, shown in darker red) and occur over Mount Olympus west of Seattle, Washington. The image illustrates the influence of mountains on the storm. Stripes of red, representing the heaviest rainfall, cover the Coastal Range (left) and the windward slopes of the Cascade Mountains (right). Some areas of heavy rain, however, do extend out over the Pacific, off of the Washington coast. The weather pattern responsible for all of the rain is known as the Pineapple Express. The Pineapple Express is really just the subtropical jet steam, a stream of fast-moving air that carries moisture originating around the Hawaiian Islands northeast towards the West Coast. This moisture can then be drawn into storm systems as they approach the West Coast. In this case, a slow-moving storm system tapped into this tropical moisture to generate heavy rainfall. The coastal topography also aided in squeezing out the moisture as air was lifted over the mountain ranges.TRMM [ http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] 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).
Record Snow on the U.S. East …
Title Record Snow on the U.S. East Coast
Description The East Coast of the United States went from balmy, spring-like weather to winter white overnight between February 11 and 12, 2006. A powerful nor'easter moved up the coast from the Gulf of Mexico settling heavy snow from Virginia to Massachusetts. New York City bore the brunt of the storm, with totals in Central Park at the city's center reaching 26.9 inches, reported the National Weather Service. The storm gave New York City more snow than any other storm since records began in 1869. The heavy snow closed all three of New York City's airports as well as National Airport outside of Washington, D.C., said the "New York Times". All of the ingredients for a classic nor'easter were present when the storm developed. In general, nor'easters form when a low-pressure system brings warm, wet air from the Gulf of Mexico up the East Coast, where it meets cold Arctic air. As the two systems mix, the air cools, and heavy rain or snow is unleashed. The resulting storm gets its name from the strong northeastern winds that are generated by the pressure difference between the Arctic front and the low-pressure system. If a nor'easter forms rapidly, as the storm on February 11 and 12 did, the winds can begin to circle counterclockwise around the low-pressure center of the storm. The storm was starting to exhibit counterclockwise circulation on February 12, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image. The top edge of the storm (top right) circles around a rare eye-like center over Long Island. The thick band of clouds that made up the rest of the storm had already been blown off the coast, though plenty of residual clouds lingered over the storm-hit region. On February 11, the distinct band of clouds seen on the right side of this image stretched from the Gulf of Mexico up to New England, showing the path of the storm. The highest snowfall totals on February 12 as reported by the National Weather Service follow the track of this band of clouds. The image shown above is a composite of two satellite overpasses from two different times. A faint diagonal line separates the two, and the black wedge at the bottom of the image shows where the satellite collected no data. NASA image by Jesse Allen using data provided by the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC.
School Fire in Washington
Title School Fire in Washington
Description On August 10, 2005, the School Fire in southeastern Washington was still billowing thick smoke. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image, the sensor detected several areas of active fire (outlined in red). Additional fires were burning in Oregon and Idaho, though none were as large as the School Fire. For information on the status of fires across the United States, visit the Current Wildland Fire Information [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] Website of the National Interagency Fire Center. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
School Fire in Washington
Title School Fire in Washington
Description On August 10, 2005, the School Fire in southeastern Washington was still billowing thick smoke. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image, the sensor detected several areas of active fire (outlined in red). Additional fires were burning in Oregon and Idaho, though none were as large as the School Fire. For information on the status of fires across the United States, visit the Current Wildland Fire Information [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] Website of the National Interagency Fire Center. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
School Fire, Washington
Title School Fire, Washington
Description In southeastern Washington in early August 2005, the School Fire was raging through the Umatilla National Forest about 16 miles south of the town of Pomery. By August 11, 2005, the fire had consumed 42,000 acres, and was 40% contained. In addition, the fire destroyed 87 buildings, including 49 residences. Other buildings in the area are under evacuation orders, and several roads are closed. On August 10, 2005, the School Fire was still billowing thick smoke. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image, the sensor detected several areas of active fire (outlined in red). Additional fires were burning in Oregon and Idaho, though none were as large as the School Fire. Information on the status of fires across the United States, visit the Current Wildland Fire Information [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] Website of the National Interagency Fire Center. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions. [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/2005222 ] NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
School Fire, Washington
Title School Fire, Washington
Description In southeastern Washington in early August 2005, the School Fire was raging through the Umatilla National Forest about 16 miles south of the town of Pomery. By August 11, 2005, the fire had consumed 42,000 acres, and was 40% contained. In addition, the fire destroyed 87 buildings, including 49 residences. Other buildings in the area are under evacuation orders, and several roads are closed. On August 10, 2005, the School Fire was still billowing thick smoke. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image, the sensor detected several areas of active fire (outlined in red). Additional fires were burning in Oregon and Idaho, though none were as large as the School Fire. Information on the status of fires across the United States, visit the Current Wildland Fire Information [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] Website of the National Interagency Fire Center. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions. [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/2005222 ] NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Fires in Northern Washington
Title Fires in Northern Washington
Description More than 139,000 acres had been burned by the Tripod Complex Fire in northern Washington as of August 28, 2006, according to reports from the National Interagency Fire Center. [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] This image of the fire was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov ] satellite on August 27, 2006. Although most of the images of the fire in this series have been photo-like, natural-color images, this scene has been enhanced with MODIS' observations of short-wave and near-infrared light. In this type of image, burned areas appear deep red, vegetation appears bright green, and water appears dark blue or nearly black. Active fire locations that MODIS detected are outlined in red. The bright pink glow inside some of the fire perimeters may indicate open flame. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides twice-daily images of the entire western United States at additional resolutions. [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1 ] NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Fires in Northern Washington
Title Fires in Northern Washington
Description In northern Washington, several large fires were burning when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] passed overhead on September 7, 2006. This photo-like image of the region shows the Tatoosh and Tripod Complexes, as well as the Cedar Creek, Flick Creek, and Tinpan Fires. Smoke had settled into the valleys of rivers and creeks that wind through the rugged mountains. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fire are outlined in red. Information on the status of the fires in this image is available in the daily report on the Website of the National Interagency Fire Center. [ http://www.nifc.gov/nicc ] The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/ ] of the western United States in a variety of resolutions and formats. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center.
Subtropical Storm Andrea
Title Subtropical Storm Andrea
Description The circling clouds of an intense low-pressure system sat off the southeast coast of the United States on May 8, 2007, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image. By the following morning, the storm had developed enough to be classified as a subtropical storm, a storm that forms outside of the tropics, but has many of the characteristics—hurricane-force winds, driving rains, low pressure, and sometimes an eye—of a tropical storm. Although it arrived several weeks shy of the official start of the hurricane season (June 1), Subtropical Storm Andrea became the first named storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm has the circular shape of a tropical cyclone in this image, but lacks the tight organization seen in more powerful storms. By May 9, the storm's winds reached 75 kilometers per hour (45 miles per hour), and the storm was not predicted to get any stronger, said the National Hurricane Center. [ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml? ] Though Subtropical Storm Andrea was expected to remain offshore, its strong winds and high waves pummeled coastal states, prompting a tropical storm watch. The winds fueled wild fires [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14251 ] (marked with red boxes) in Georgia and Florida. The wind-driven flames generated thick plumes of smoke that concentrated in a gray-brown mass over Tampa Bay, Florida. Unfortunately for Georgia and Florida, which are experiencing moderate to severe drought, Subtropical Storm Andrea was not predicted to bring significant rain to the region right away, according to reports [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050900917.html ] on the Washington Post Website. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC
Fires in the Western United …
Title Fires in the Western United States
Description The western United States was wilting under widespread hot temperatures in late July 2006. In blazing heat, firefighters were working to contain numerous wildfires in several Western states, including Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Idaho. This image of the area was captured on July 27 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov ] satellite. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are marked in red. Four of the largest blazes (as of July 28) have been labeled: the 12,000-acre Tripod Fire in Washington, the 28,958-acre Foster Gulch Complex near the Oregon-Idaho state line, the 4,550-acre Sage Fire in California, and the 30,000-acre Winters Fire in northern Nevada. For more information on fires in the United States, visit the National Interagency Fire Center [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] Website. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions, including MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Fires in the Western United …
Title Fires in the Western United States
Description In early September 2006, firefighters in the western United States had their hands full. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite shows large wildfires (red dots) burning in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada on September 5. Some clouds are scattered across the area, some of them likely building into afternoon thunderstorms, which may help or hinder firefighters, depending on how much rain, wind, or lightning the storms produce. Several of the largest fires are labeled in the image, and three are shown in the close-up images below the wide-area image at top. The National Interagency Fire Center [ http://www.nifc.gov/information.html ] report from September 6 stated that the 32,019-acre Bar Complex Fire in California was threatening structures and a watershed, the 67,500-acre Amazon Fire and the 100,000-acre Sheep Fire were threatening structures, livestock, fisheries, power lines, mines, and grazing lands, and the 92,225-acre Columbia Complex Fire was threatening residences, a ski area, a wind energy site, and commercial resources. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides daily images of sub-sections of the entire United States at additional resolutions via a clickable map. [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/ ] NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center
Fires in the Western United …
Title Fires in the Western United States
Description Thick, white smoke seeps through the valleys of the Rocky Mountains ranges that run through Idaho, Washington, and Oregon in this photo-like image taken on September 12, 2006. At the time, firefighters were monitoring 29 wild fires in the three states, said the National Interagency Fire Center. [ http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html ] Many of the fires were started by lightning, as suggested by the clusters of fires (red dots) seen in this image. The image was taken in the early afternoon by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite. Most of the fires are burning in the deep-green, pine-covered mountains. Sage, scrub, and grass-covered desert is tan, while agricultural land creates a pattern of tiny, bright green and gold dots. Between January 1 and September 12, 2006, a total of 8,653,883 acres of land had burned in the United States, exceeding the totals for the same period of any other year since 2000. Many of the fires that burned in remote areas were simply monitored as part of a long-term land-management strategy, but those that threatened structures were actively combated. Some of the large fires shown here include the Columbia Complex, [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13804 ] which had burned 103,100 acres and was 80 percent contained on September 12, the Elkhorn Complex, which had burned 870 acres and was 15 percent contained, the Payette Complex, which had burned 10,729 acres, the South Fork Complex, 41,600 acres and 20 percent contained, the Boundary Complex, 22,785 acres and 5 percent contained, the Red Mountain Fire, 32,825 acres and 30 percent contained, and the Rattlesnake Complex, 37,421 acres and 30 percent contained. Several other large fires burned in the western United States on September 12. The Derby Fire [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13832 ] in western Montana (just beyond the right edge of the image) had threatened homes and forced hundred of evacuations in early September. By September 12, it had burned 207,644 acres and was 70 percent contained, said the National Interagency Fire Center. The Day Fire [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13848 ] was burning in Los Padres National Forest about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, California. Its thick smoke temporarily closed Interstate 5 on September 12. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] team.
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