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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 |
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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 |
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Floods in the Midwestern Uni
| Title |
Floods in the Midwestern United States |
| Description |
The rivers of northwestern Missouri were still swollen in the wake of intense spring storms when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on May 10, 2007. The image is made from a combination of infrared and visible light to make the floods more visible than they would be in a photo-like image. In this type of image, water is dark blue or black, clouds are light blue and white, plant-covered land is bright green, and bare earth is pink-tinted tan. Fires are outlined with red boxes. The Missouri River runs along the left edge of the image, then curves east along the bottom of the image. Though the most flooded regions were covered in clouds, a few breaks reveal that the Missouri was swollen far beyond its banks. Nestled in a bend in the river near the Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri border is the town of Big Lake. The image shows that the river's curve has turned into a broad lake. The town was completely submerged in the flood when levees along the river broke, reported the Associated Press. [ http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/11/missouri.flooding.ap/index.html ] Beyond Big Lake, many communities along the Grand and the Platte Rivers and their tributaries have also been flooded or threatened by floods. All of these rivers are clearly running high in the image. MODIS captured the lower image on April 29, 2007, not quite a week before the rains began. By providing a clear view of normal water levels, the image illustrates just how extensively the rivers were flooded on May 10. Photo-like versions of both the April 29 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007119/USA3.2007119.aqua ] and May 10 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007130/USA3.2007130.terra ] images are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System. NASA images courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC. |
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Floods in the Midwestern Uni
| Title |
Floods in the Midwestern United States |
| Description |
The rivers of northwestern Missouri were still swollen in the wake of intense spring storms when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on May 10, 2007. The image is made from a combination of infrared and visible light to make the floods more visible than they would be in a photo-like image. In this type of image, water is dark blue or black, clouds are light blue and white, plant-covered land is bright green, and bare earth is pink-tinted tan. Fires are outlined with red boxes. The Missouri River runs along the left edge of the image, then curves east along the bottom of the image. Though the most flooded regions were covered in clouds, a few breaks reveal that the Missouri was swollen far beyond its banks. Nestled in a bend in the river near the Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri border is the town of Big Lake. The image shows that the river's curve has turned into a broad lake. The town was completely submerged in the flood when levees along the river broke, reported the Associated Press. [ http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/11/missouri.flooding.ap/index.html ] Beyond Big Lake, many communities along the Grand and the Platte Rivers and their tributaries have also been flooded or threatened by floods. All of these rivers are clearly running high in the image. MODIS captured the lower image on April 29, 2007, not quite a week before the rains began. By providing a clear view of normal water levels, the image illustrates just how extensively the rivers were flooded on May 10. Photo-like versions of both the April 29 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007119/USA3.2007119.aqua ] and May 10 [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA3/2007130/USA3.2007130.terra ] images are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System. NASA images courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC. |
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Drought on the Great Plains
| Title |
Drought on the Great Plains |
| Description |
Across the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, devastating drought spread across grasslands and croplands in summer 2006. Poor winter snowfall and a blisteringly hot summer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13742 ] following several years of dry conditions have created a dire situation for many farmers and ranchers across the region. According to a recent article [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/us/29drought.html?ex=1157688000&en=13a216546b7d4243&ei=5070 ] on the New York Times Website, many people are comparing the conditions to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The widespread drought conditions are obvious in this vegetation anomaly image based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite. Places where vegetation is healthier or more abundant than average are green, places where vegetation is about the same as average are pale yellow, and places where vegetation is not as healthy or abundant as average are brown. Gray patches show where no data were available, probably because of persistent clouds. One of the most common satellite-based vegetation maps is a scale, or index, of vegetation greenness called the "NDVI," short for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. This image compares NDVI values from July 28-August 12, 2006, to the average values from 2001-2005. Vegetation was faring worst along the Missouri River through North and South Dakota, but below-average vegetation conditions stretch across parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, northwestern Nebraska, and Minnesota as well. The plains of Canada's Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces were suffering drought, too. A few small pockets of green in the image reveal where vegetation greenness values observed by MODIS were higher than average: the mountains of north-central Colorado, southeastern Nebraska, and the Red River Valley. The Red River Valley experienced widespread snowfall and heavy rains in the spring of 2006, leading to significant flooding. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13500 ] The early-season moisture may have helped the vegetation in the area withstand the hot summer. According to the August 29, 2006, update from the U.S. Drought Monitor, [ http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html ] most of the Northern Great Plains, as well as much of Oklahoma and Texas, was still in the midst of drought, with many areas falling into the highest category: exceptional drought. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by Inbal Reshef as part of the Global Agricultural Monitoring Project [ http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/glam.cfm ] between NASA, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), and the University of Maryland. |
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Rocky Mountain Fires
| Title |
Rocky Mountain Fires |
| Description |
This view of the fires in the western United States, collected on June 10, 2002, by the Sea-Viewing Wide Field of View Sensor (SeaWiFS) shows several of the larger smoke plumes as well as a band of smoke over Nebraska and the Dakotas that appears to be getting pulled into a low pressure system centered over northern Montana. Image courtesy the SeaWiFS Project [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/redirect?http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html ], NASA GSFC, and ORBIMAGE |
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Snow Across the Western Unit
| Title |
Snow Across the Western United States |
| Description |
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year in the United States as people return home from the four-day weekend. Sunday, November 28, 2004, was no exception, but this year, Mother Nature snarled traffic across a large swath of the west with an intense snow storm. The storm dumped up to 24 inches (0.6 meters) of snow on the mountains of southern Utah, and blanketed the surrounding states. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image the following day, on November 29, after the clouds moved out. The storm's path is clearly visible in this image: a track of white extends from southeastern Oregon and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California to Colorado and New Mexico in the east. The National Weather Service reports that the storm moved east across the Plains States of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Iowa on November 29 and November 30. The snow highlights some interesting features of the Western United States that might not otherwise be obvious in satellite imagery. Sandwiched between the straight diagonal line of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the west (the straight edge of the snow) and the Rocky Mountains in Central Utah in the east is the Great Basin Desert. This high desert basin covers a heart-shaped region of southern Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and southern Idaho and is clearly outlined in snow. Hemmed between two large mountain ranges that trap moisture from the east and the west, it is the United States' largest desert. It receives on average 7-12 inches of precipitation every year. The water that does fall in the region drains to interior, closed basins instead of the ocean, giving the region its name. The Great Basin Desert is made up of a series of mostly north-south running mountain ranges and valleys that give the land a wrinkled, wash-board appearance, particularly in Nevada. The snow highlights elevation change elsewhere in the image. The imposing Rocky Mountains appear slightly darker than the valleys around them, and the peaks and high plateaus in the south are covered in snow while the pink desert lowlands remain bare. On the right edge of the image, the flat plains of eastern Wyoming and Colorado are an even, uninterrupted white. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes DAAC |
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Snow Across the Western Unit
| Title |
Snow Across the Western United States |
| Description |
As much as 18 inches of snow coated the Sierra Nevada Mountains on November 27 and 28, 2004, stranding thousands of holiday travelers. In this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]), captured by NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite on November 28, 2004, the mountains seem to have acted as a barrier to the storm, which moved in from the northwest, according to the National Weather Service. The east side of the mountains and the Great Desert Basin are white with snow, while the west side remains green. After this image was acquired, the storm moved east, blanketing Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska with heavy snow. NASA image courtesy Liam Gumley, University of Wisconsin-Madison from data acquired by direct broadcast at Oregon State University |
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Floods in the Midwestern Uni
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
* eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/ima
Missouri_TMO_2007130
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-05-10 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
Missouri_TMO_2007130 |
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Spring Snow in the Upper Mid
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
It was the last day of March
UpperMidwest_AMO_2008092
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2008-04-01 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
UpperMidwest_AMO_2008092 |
|
Thunderstorms and Tornadoes
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
A major spring storm system
usa_trmm_2008134
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2008-05-13 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
usa_trmm_2008134 |
|
Sand Hills, Nebraska: Image
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
The Sand Hills cover about a
nebraska-sand.AST2001253
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2001-09-10 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/ ASTER Science Team |
| identifier |
nebraska-sand.AST2001253 |
|
Snow and Ice Storm in the Mi
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
An unusually wide swath of s
modis_icestorm_midwest
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2002-02-01 |
| creator |
NASA -- MODIS image courtesy University of Wisconsin www.ssec.wisc.edu/ Space Science and Engineering Center, and the modarch.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Science Team SeaWiFS image courtesy the seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE |
| identifier |
modis_icestorm_midwest |
|
First Blizzard of the Season
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
* eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/ima
USA_AMO_2005333
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-11-29 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
USA_AMO_2005333 |
|
Autumn Twisters Rip Through
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
On October 9, 2001, the Stor
Tornadic_Storm
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2001-10-09 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/picoday/011010/011010.html CIRA/NOAA |
| identifier |
Tornadic_Storm |
|
Platte River, Nebraska: Imag
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
Shallow channels of water we
platte_Elidar2002088
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2002-03-29 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy Paul Kinzel of the United States Geological Survey and Wayne Wright of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility |
| identifier |
platte_Elidar2002088 |
|
Drought on the Great Plains:
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
Across the Great Plains of t
nplainsndvia_tmo_2006209
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2006-08-12 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by Inbal Reshef as part of the www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/glam.cfm Global Agricultural Monitoring Project between NASA, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), and the University of Maryland. |
| identifier |
nplainsndvia_tmo_2006209 |
|
Snowstorm Blankets Midwester
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
An early blast of wintry wea
Midwest_US_snowstorm
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2001-12-01 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, modis-land.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
| identifier |
Midwest_US_snowstorm |
|
First GOES-11 Image : Image
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
On 17 May 2000, the first vi
firstgoes11
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2000-05-17 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy NASA GSFC, data from NOAA-GOES |
| identifier |
firstgoes11 |
|
Rocky Mountain Fires: Natura
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
This view of the fires in th
COSmoke.OSW2002161
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2002-06-10 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
COSmoke.OSW2002161 |
|
Major Snowstorm in the U.S.
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
The Sunday after Thanksgivin
terra_uswest_29nov04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-11-29 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes DAAC. |
| identifier |
terra_uswest_29nov04 |
|
Blizzards in the Western Uni
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
* eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/ima
terra_uswest_05jan04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2003-12-24 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
| identifier |
terra_uswest_05jan04 |
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