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NASA
The imaging spectroradiometer on NASA's Aqua satellite acquired this image of the swollen Mississippi River on May 5, 2011.
NASA
This "before" image of the same region of the Mississippi River Valley was taken a year ago, on May 5, 2010.
Before-and-after satellite imagery reveals how much this month's flooding has changed the shape of the Mississippi River.
The upper image was captured by NASA's Aqua satellite, using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, on May 5, 2011. The lower image was taken exactly one year earlier with the same imaging instrument.
Both images use a combination of infrared and visible light to distinguish between different surface features. The water is shown in shades of blue. The clouds visible in this month's image are a pale blue-green. Vegetation is green, and soil is brown. Such images can be used to assess the floods' long-term effects on agriculture in the region.
More satellite views in the news:
- Satellite photos show tsunami's devastation in Japan
- How satellites helped get Osama bin Laden
- Satellite views from our holiday calendar
- Slideshow: Earth as art
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Saw a stupid news reporter who pronounced Cairo Kay-ROW. What the hell are they teaching journalism classes these days. Most news writers can't write and news reporters can't pronounce the names of the places they're reporting on.
You mean instead of KAY-row, with the accent on the first syllable?
Yes some newscasters can be dumb, but what about post(er)s that can't stay on topic? The topic IS the flood.
They pronounce it Kay-Row because they don't want to get mixed up with that Cairo place in Africa where all them Muslims live. :)
I haven't been there, but I looked it up, and apparently the town's name is pronounced "Kair-oh." I can say that Miami, Oklahoma is pronounced "My-ah-mah." Many places are pronounced in the local accent--and the reporter appears to have picked that up.
You should hear them try to pronounce Cape Girardeau.
Calvin, you're probably right. But in this case the reporter pronounced it correctly (knowingly or not) as that's the local pronunciation. Just as Marseilles is locally pronounced as "Marsayles" and DesPlaines is pronounced as "Dessplaynes". Heck, even the state's name is pronounced incorrectly as "Illinoy" or even "Illinoys" by some people, if you want to go that far. You'd never know that Illinois used to part of New France.
I live in Arkansas, and The Rivers here are extremely high still. We go Four Wheeling down by the Arkansas River where there is alot of sand dunes and the whole landscape has been changed. Dead fish litter the banks everywhere, dont exactly know why, maybe too much silt and sand mixed up in the river or the currents are to strong, quite an amazing sight.
I've been around long enough to have seen the mississippi flood at least 6 times. It always amazes me that people (re)build in flood plain areas, even when damage from flooding is apparent. Move to the hills people!!! Just plain(pun intended) stupid!!
These maps cannot be accurate. I work in downtown Nashville and our offices were closed the ENTIRE first week of May 2010 due to record flooding...the stadium nearly got washed away! Yet the rivers look fine in this photo that's supposedly one year prior...not accurate, get your facts straight.
All that extra water weight is probably affecting the underlying rock support. Maybe this will need to another huge earthquake next?
I may not be a smart person but in the "before" photo you can see the light brown areas around the river and in the "after" photo you can see those areas covered with water ... THOSE ARE THE FLOOD PLAINS AND YOU SHOULDN'T LIVE THERE!!! Mother Nature has rulled that are forever and no levey or dam is going to stop what occurs natually!! No sympathy!
It's like the old joke -- How do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky? Is it Louis-ville, or Louie-ville, or Loua-ville?
None of the above. It's pronounced Frankfort.
My answer to the flooding and other weather related problems in the USA.
People that live in flood zones, should move to higher ground.
People that live in tornado alley should live in Earth Sheltered homes or have a basement.
People that live along the southeast coast line should move inland.
People that live in the desert should learn to use less water.
If you don't like snow and cold, move south.
If you don't like heat and rain, move north.
If you don't like snakes, move to Ireland.
I think we have it covered.
Pretty much every place that is flat is a "flood zone" if you include the 100-year flood.
You can't put a basement in a home in many areas of "Tornado Alley" or "Dixie Alley" because of the water table--and you certainly cannot build all the commercial buildings (which also are flattened--given that tornadoes come through in the early afternoon, that's where people are) as Earth sheltered. It isn't practical to build Earth sheltered in many areas, also.
People along the SE coast could move inland, but that wouldn't help much unless they went WAY inland. It might make more sense to limit the expense of buildings right on the coast. And, in any case, tourism requires that things are built near the shore.
People that live in the desert already use "less" water. What do you mean by "less"?
It rains quite a bit in the North--it is quite dry in many parts of the South--it snows in the South, too.
But, yes, there are no native snakes in Ireland. There probably aren't any in Antarctica or northern Alaska and Canada, either.
Rebuilding in the flood plain is like what happens on the Jersey shore each year...millions of dollars spent on depositing new sand on the beaches after it is whisked away by the waves and currents during hurricane season. Why oh why or why.
You can see in the after photo where water pooled up along time ago. It was only a mater of time before the river reclamed its bounds.
Still waiting for the New Madrid fault to rupture and reroute this water to West Texas. What a disaster that would be. Don't rule out the fault moving either during or shortly after this flooding.
You are correct in not to rule it in or out either during flooding or after flooding as the weight of the water either "normal" or "loaded with water" is not likely to be the causation of an earthquake. The New Madrid fault zone is an intercontinental fault zone and their movement that causes earthquakes are the most complicated to understand compared to earthquakes that occur along tectonic plate boundaries.
More on-topic, the two satellite images are quite interesting. The mighty meandering Mississippi River looks like it may now form some Oxbow Lakes which were not present before..... pretty cool to see hydrogeology in action although it has caused lots of serious hardships to many people. Maybe some good will come out of it though and teach people not to build in floodplains especially in the floodplain of such a large drainage basin.....
Building on agricultural land in a flood zone should carry serious penalties ahead of the next flood, triple the usual real estate tax would be appropriate.