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MODIS News and Events

Posted on by Tassia Owen Posted in News and Events

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Dust and sand storms are not unusual in North Africa and western Asia; in fact, they are a regular part of the region’s rhythm and observed often by satellites. But familiarity does not make them any less extraordinary.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image at 11:25 a.m. local time (0825 Universal Time) on July 7, 2014. A thick plume of dust was blowing out from the dry interior of Sudan and across hundreds of kilometers of the Red Sea, with smaller plumes also visible over Saudi Arabia and Eritrea. Prevailing northwest winds over the water blew the plumes to the southeast. Read more

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Posted on by Tassia Owen Posted in News and Events

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A combination of lightning and dry forests fueled numerous wildfires in Canada’s Northwest Territories in July 2014. The fires, burning in Canada’s boreal zone, are producing dense smoke. As of July 8, at least 164 blazes had charred more than 425,172 hectares (1,642 square miles), according to the Canadian government. The fires destroyed one home, forced hundreds of people to evacuate, and sent smoke drifting as far south as the continental United States.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of smoke billowing from wildfires near Faber Lake on July 7, 2014. Read more

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Adam Voiland.

 

Posted on by Tassia Owen Posted in News and Events

neoguri_tmo_2014190

Typhoon Neoguri pounded Okinawa and other Western Pacific islands with torrential rain and damaging winds in mid-July 2014, en route to a likely landfall in Japan. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured a nighttime image of the storm at 2:07 a.m. Japan Standard Time on July 9, 2014 (17:07 Universal Time on July 8). At the time, Neoguri was a category 2 typhoon moving through the East China Sea.

The storm was imaged by a special “day-night band” that detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses light intensification to detect dim signals. The instrument can sense light as much as 100,000 times fainter than conventional visible-light sensors, making it very sensitive to moonlight and city lights. In this case, the cloud tops were lit by the nearly full Moon.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a natural-color image of Neoguri at 11:30 a.m. local time (0230 Universal Time) on July 9, 2014. Read more

Terra MODIS image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.

Posted on by Tassia Owen Posted in News and Events

india_lsta_20140602-09

In the first half of June 2014, news accounts described an extreme heatwave in India, as well as the late and somewhat weak arrival of the seasonal monsoon. Air temperatures in New Delhi climbed as high as 48° Celsius (118° Fahrenheit) and stayed above 43°C (110°F) for seven days. Satellite data offer some insights on what was happening on the ground.

The maps above show land surface temperature (LST) anomalies for southern Asia from June 2–9 and June 10–17, 2014. LST anomalies are not absolute temperatures; instead, they show how much the land surface was heated above or below the average. The darkest reds show areas where the ground was as much as 12°C (22°F) above the norm from 2001–2010; blues show areas that were below normal; and grays depicts areas with incomplete data (usually due to excessive cloud cover). Read more

Posted on by Tassia Owen Posted in News and Events

Parana_tmo_2014162

Torrential rain brought deadly floods to southern Brazil and Paraguay in June 2014. The top image, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on June 11, 2014, shows flooding in the Paraná River system in Brazil’s Paraná state. The Ivaí, Piquiri, and Paraná rivers are all swollen and muddy from runoff. The lower image, acquired by Terra MODIS on June 12, 2012, shows the river system in non-flood conditions. Turn on the image comparison tool to see the extent of the flooding. Read more

NASA image courtesy LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.