Photos: NASA Satellites Show Mississippi River Floods From Space
By Gabriel Perna | May 12, 2011 08:02 PM EDT
As floods ravage the southeast part of the country, NASA satellites have captured the images from outer space.
The Mississippi River water level reached 48 feet in Memphis, Tenn., on May 10, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. It was the highest water level for Memphis since 1937. Thousands have been evacuated by the floods and the area has declared a state of emergency.
As the agency has done before with other disasters, NASA was able to capture photos of flood from outer space using two separate cameras. The photos on the top were used with the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper. Taken by the NASA Earth Observatory, they show in natural color the area around Memphis as it would look to the human eye. The second image by Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper shows non flood conditions.
Below those photos are three images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua over the past two weeks of Arkansas. The top image is during the flood and the bottom is before the flood. The photo at the very bottom is a larger image of the flood conditions.
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Mississippi floodwaters inundate Memphis, Tenn., on May 10 as seen by the Landsat 5 satellite
Source: NASA
Memphis, Tenn before the flood.
Source: NASA
Flooding in Arkansas as seen on May 10 by NASA's Aqua satellite
Source: NASA
Arkansas before the Flood in late April.
Source: NASA
High-res photo of Arkansas during the Mississippi River flood taken from NASA's Aqua satellite
Source: NASA
