NASA

The Grand Canyon stuns visitors with breathtaking views every day. Between November 29 and December 2, 2013, it stunned visitors even more by not being visible. A rare meteorological event filled the canyon with an ocean of clouds. Such events are so rare that National Park Service rangers-who see the canyon every day-wait for years to see the ground-hugging fog.

The 2013 fog event was unusual because of its extent, as shown in the second image, captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Read more

MODIS image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Mather Point photograph courtesy Grand Canyon National Park. GOES images courtesy NOAA-NASA GOES Project. NASA Earth Observatory animation by Robert Simmon. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

A large storm system brought more than a foot of rain to parts of Central Texas on October 30 and 31, 2013. Up to 14 inches (36 cm) of rain fell in the Austin region, according to the National Weather Service. The rain triggered flash floods that left two people dead, forced evacuations, and closed roads. The clouds had largely cleared by 12:35 p.m. when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite acquired the top natural color image. Normally black or dark blue, rivers and reservoirs are muddy brown and green from runoff. Read more

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

Livescience.com recently featured a Terra MODIS image of Tropical Storm Raymond off of Mexico’s Pacific coast before it erupted into a major hurricane.

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