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This podcast covers an introduction to the topic and covers Tectonic Hazards. Go to my Facebook page to find the part of the specification to follow along with this podcast! https://www.facebook.com/Geographypodcasts/

On May 14, 2003, the MODIS instrument onboard the NASA's Terra satellite captured this bird's-eye view of Tropical Cyclone 01B in the Bay of Bengal. This satellite image reveals that the low-level circulation is fully exposed to the east of the deep convection (dense cloud). The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003134-0514 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

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The MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured this true-color image of Hurricane Frances swirling above the waters of the tropical Atlantic Ocean on August 31 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 AM EDT). At the time this image was taken Frances was located approximately 285 km (175 miles) northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was moving towards the west at 24 km/hr (15 mph). Maximum sustained winds were near 215 km/hr (135 mph) with a minimum central pressure of 950 mb. This makes Frances a Category 4 storm on the Saffir/Simpson Scale. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004244-0831/Frances.A2004244.1445 additional resolutions and formats. NASA image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

On August 10, 2002, the modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this true-color image of Kazakhstan and numerous fires (red dots) burning there. The patchwork of small rectangles that dominates the northern part of the image shows plots of farm or ranch land, and the small scattered fires are likely for agricultural purposes. Some of the larger blazes to the south may be grassland fires, or agricultural burns that got out of control. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

A dust storm in Central Africa that began in late December 2004 intensified in the first week of January 2005. In the southern Sahara Desert, a large low-lying area known as the Bodele Depression is one of the largest sources of wind-blown dust on Earth. In this image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov Terra satellite, captured on January 6, the thick cloud of dust begins in Chad (upper right) and spreads outward over neighboring countries. Along the southern edges of the cloud, smaller rivers of dust weave over the green landscapes of the Sahel and savannas in Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic. In the bottom of the scene, an arc of fires spreads across those countries as well. The red dots show the locations where MODIS detected active fires. The widespread nature of the fires and the time of year suggest that these fires are being set intentionally for agricultural purposes. Though not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2005006-0106/CAfrica.A2005006.0955.2km.jpg additional resolutions. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center

Over the course of the day on December 16, 2002, the number of fires (indicated with red dots) burning across the central African Sahel and savannas more than tripled, increasing from just over 1,000 at the time of the Terra MODIS overpass to close to 4,000 by the time Aqua MODIS passed over in the afternoon. The ability to monitor the diurnal pattern of fire is one of the many benefits of having two iterations of a sensor flying aboard ''sister'' satellites. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

Scattered fires were burning in western Argentina (center) on November 19, 2003. The dry, rugged Andes Mountains to the left of image center give way to a vast plain, which is extensively used for agriculture. This image and active fire detections (marked in red) were captured by the modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003323-1119/Chile.A2003323.1450.250m.jpg 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

Thick streams of tan dust blow northward off the shores of Morocco into the Atlantic Ocean. West of the dust storm are the Canary Islands. The dust appears to have originated in the Western Sahara, left of the dark brown wrinkle the Atlas Mountains form in the otherwise tan landscape. The modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this true-color image on November 4, 2003. The high resolution image provided above is at 500 meters per pixel. The image is also available at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003314-1110/Chad.A2003314.0945.250m.jpg 250 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/19000/19261/Mun_TMO_2007251_lrg.jpg September 8, 2007 (4.72 MB JPG) The annual monsoon was just coming to a close when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) flying on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this view of swollen rivers in northeastern Thailand on October 21, 2007. The monsoon typically runs from about May through November, followed by a cooler, dry season. By October, the rivers of northern Thailand are often swollen with monsoon rains, and 2007 was no exception. The floods of 2007 were not as severe as the earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13931 extreme flooding seen in 2006 in most regions, said the www.dartmouth.edu/%7efloods/Archives/2007sum.htm Dartmouth Flood Observatory, but they were damaging nonetheless. This image shows flooding along the Mun and Chi Rivers. Flash floods in the mountains around the Chi River caused enough damage that the region was declared a flood disaster zone, said the Dartmouth Flood Observatory. The image and the accompanying image from September 8 were made with a mixture of infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and earth. In these images, water is dark blue or black. Plant-covered land is green, and bare earth is tan. Clouds are pale blue and white. A comparison between the two images reveals that the parabola-shaped Chi River was swollen along most of its length on October 21. A web of blue and green surrounds the main channel of the Mun River in the top image, and the river's tributaries were also running high. The large image, which includes a broader area, also shows flooding on the Pa Sak, Nan, Yom, and Chao Phraya Rivers to the west of the Mun and Chi Rivers. rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/fas/?Indochina/2007294 Daily images of Southeast Asia are available from the MODIS Rapid Response System. NASA images courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

Tropical Storm Manou is bearing down on the east coast of Madagascar in this modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite on May 7, 2003. As of the morning of May 8, the eye of the storm was about 40 miles off the coast Madagascar. Manou was expected to intensify briefly before making landfall, weaken a bit as it moved southward along the coast, and then head back out over the southern Indian Ocean, where it will intensify once again. As of the morning of May 8, the storm had sustained winds of 71 miles per hour. The rainy season in Madagascar is typically November-April, during which time the island, which is located off the southeastern tip of Africa, is subject to tropical cyclones, averaging about 4 per year. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003127-0507/Manou.A2003127.0700.250m.jpg 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

Fires across the Northern Rockies continued to burn on August 21, 2003. This image of the dozens of large fires (marked in yellow) was captured by the modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite. The lake in the top left quadrant of the image is Flathead Lake in northwest Montana. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

According to the National Interagency Fire Center report from June 21, 2007, numerous residences and other structures remained threatened by the 1,800-acre Newcastle Fire in Colorado. The fire was burning about 8 miles west of the city of Glenwood Springs. This image of the area was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite on June 20, 2007. The location where MODIS detected actively burning fire is outlined in red. The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?AERONET_BSRN_BAO_Boulder twice-daily images of the region in additional resolutions. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

Ophelia was once again a hurricane when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this image at 11:35 a.m. local time, on September 11, 2005. A Category 1 hurricane, Ophelia had sustained winds of 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour). Tropical Storm Ophelia formed off the Atlantic Coast of Florida. As it gathered strength and size, it brought winds and rain to parts of the Florida coast, though the storm's center remained offshore. By September 8, Ophelia briefly reached hurricane strength, but it soon weakened again. Over the following two days, the center of the storm system moved eastwards off the Florida coast and began a gradual track north and east, paralleling the U.S. coastline. As Ophelia moved, the storm again rebuilt into a Category 1 hurricane. It is unusual for a storm system to build just offshore in this fashion, especially as having rain bands over land tends to break up the storm formation. It is also unusual to have so many storms in such a short time: the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season looks likely to go into the record books as the most active season on record yet. Ophelia is the earliest ''O'' named storm in a season since the storm naming system was devised. The large image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. It is available in http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2005254-0911/Ophelia.A2005254.1535 additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

The Booth (south) and Bear Butte (north) Fires in Oregon continued to grow explosively on August 21, 2003. This image shows the huge column of smoke billowing from the two blazes, which were detected by the modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite and are marked with yellow in this image. Stretches of highway have been closed as flames leapt over the roadway, and more than a thousand people have already been evacuated. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003233-0821/Oregon.A2003233.1845.250m.jpg 250 meters. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/14000/14241/Philippines_TMO_2004293_lrg.jpg October 19, 2004 (9.37 Mb) Four tropical storms in two weeks have saturated Luzon Island, the main island in the Philippines, causing devastating flooding. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this image of the island after the clouds from the most recent storm, earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=12605 Typhoon Nanmadol , cleared on December 4, 2004. Rivers throughout the island are swollen far beyond their normal size, as shown in the comparison image acquired on October 19. The most dramatic flooding is along the Cagayan River in the north and the Pampanga River in the south, but other rivers are also swollen. Further evidence of flooding is in the color of the water. In this false color treatment, water is typically dark blue or black. In the flood image, the water is light blue -- a sign that it is tinted with sediment. A light blue plume in Manila Bay is also sediment. As flood waters gush over the land, they carry mud into the rivers and the surrounding ocean. The sediment is more obvious in the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004339-1204/Philippines.A2004339.0230.1km.jpg true color version of the image, where Manila Bay appears to be filled with mud. Over 1,000 people are dead or missing as a result of flooding and landslides in the past week, according to media reports. The most severely impacted communities are in the Sierra Madre, where landslides buried whole communities. The flood image was provided by Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. It is available in rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004339-1204/Philippines.A2004339.0230.721.1km.jpg additional resolutions . The pre-flood image is by Jesse Allen, based on data from the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

On April 7, 2003, the modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires (marked with red dots) burning in Paraguay (right) and Argentina (left). White puffs of smoke are associated with many of the fires. At bottom, left of center, the muddy waters of the Paran River stand out against the green vegetation of the Pampas. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003097-0407/Paraguay.A2003097.1740.250.jpg 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

Fires are burning all across Russia this May, and the southeast is no exception. This modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from May 9, 2002, shows dozens of fires and associated smoke. In this cut out of the full scene, fires are located predominantly along the banks of the Amur River (center). Please note that the high-resolution scene provided here is 500 meters per pixel. For a copy of this scene at the sensor's fullest resolution, visit the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2002129-0509 MODIS Rapidfire site. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

On April 16, 2003, the seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) captured this image of African dust blowing far northward over Europe. The long trail of dust can be seen at bottom center arcing over the Pyrenees Mountains that separate Spain (south) from France (north). The trail stretches over the Atlantic Ocean and across Ireland (west) and Scotland, and continues eastward to Sweden and Norway, and then Denmark, to the south. Image provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

A dark plume of ash streamed from the Sheveluch volcano on October 20, 2004, at 1:10 UTC when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this image. Located on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, the volcano is one the region's largest and most active. Sheveluch has been erupting on and off for much of 2004, and MODIS has observed several plumes in October. The Kamchatkan Volcano Eruption Response Team ( www.avo.alaska.edu/avo4/updates/kvertweekly.htm KVERT ) places the volcano at alert level orange, indicating that an eruption is imminent or occurring. A second, fainter plume can be seen coming from the Klyuchevskoy volcano complex southwest of Sheveluch. It's not clear which volcano in the complex is erupting, but it is probably Bezymianny or Klyuchevskoy, both of which were at alert level yellow (volcano is restless, eruption may occur) and were emitting ash plumes during the first week of October. The high resolution image provided above has a resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The image is available in rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004294-1020/Shiveluch.A2004294.0110.1km.jpg additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/18000/18817/SouthAfrica_TMO_2007202_lrg.jpg July 21, 2007 (1.57 MB JPG) Days of heavy rain brought floods to South Africa's Western Cape province in late July and early August 2007. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured the top image of a flooded river flowing into Saint Helena Bay on July 31, 2007. The lower image, acquired on July 21, shows the region before the flooding started. In the top image, the flood-swollen river is bright blue, colored with sediment. By contrast, the Atlantic Ocean to the west is black. Additional flooding is visible in the large image. Floods in Cape Town (south of the area shown here) forced up to 40,000 people from their homes in shanty towns outside the city, reported www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/31/1992458.htm ABC News on July 31. Even as southwestern South Africa grappled with floods, earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14418 intense fires raged in the northeast. These images were made with a combination of visible and infrared light to highlight the presence of water on the ground. Water is blue or black, and plant-covered land is green. Crops growing in the wide valley east of the river are bright green. Natural vegetation elsewhere in the image is darker green. Bare or sparsely vegetated land is tan. The large image provided above is at MODIS' maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System produces rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?FAS_SouthAfrica2/2007212 daily images of South Africa in false color (as shown here) and photo-like true color. NASA images courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/15000/15665/npakistan_ast_11oct05_15m.jpg October 11, 2005 (257 MB) When a 7.6-magnitude earthquake shook northern Pakistan on October 8, 2005, it unleashed landslides throughout Kashmir. Days later, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite detected a landslide in the mountains southeast of the earthquake's epicenter. The side of the mountain tumbled down onto two small rivers, which had formerly flowed north into a larger river. On October 27, ASTER acquired the top image of the same landslide. In the two and a half weeks that elapsed between the two images, the rivers pooled near the base of the landslide. The rivers will likely continue to pool into lakes until the water cuts through the rubble. The deep blue water has already spread into the grey-brown dirt as it seeks a new way to drain. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of Eric Fielding (NASA/JPL, the NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.

As of Tuesday, March 14, 2006, the East Amarillo Complex Fire in Texas' northern panhandle had scorched 700,000 acres, according to the morning report from the National Interagency Fire Center. The complex is made of the Borger and I 40 Fires, which are located east of Lake Meredith, straddling the small city of Pampa. Two of the eight evacuated communities in the area were allowed to return to their neighborhoods as firefighters controlled portions of the fast-moving, wind-driven grass fires. This image of the East Amarillo Complex was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite in the afternoon (1:35 p.m.) of March 14. Places where the MODIS sensor detected actively burning fire are outlined in red. The burned area appears deep brown against the lighter winter-brown landscape. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/15000/15830/USA721_AMO_2005333_lrg.jpg Shortwave and near infrared (1.6 MB) The first blizzard of the season descended on the Midwestern United States on Monday, November 28, 2005, stranding holiday travelers returning home. The storm dumped heavy snow from North Dakota to northern Texas, dropped damaging tornadoes in Kansas and Arkansas, and blasted the region with winds gusting to 110 kilometers per hour. By Tuesday, November 29, the storm had pushed east, and only a few bands of clouds lingered over the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas. Beneath the clouds, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's aqua.nasa.gov/ Aqua satellite detected a blanket of fresh snow. The white of the snow and white clouds can be distinguished in the natural color image, top, only by their textures. The snow is a smooth white that clings to the landscape, while clouds tend to be more textured. The lower image shows the same scene in shortwave infrared and near infrared light, so snow is bright blue while clouds are white. The image makes it easier to differentiate between the back edge of the storm and the snow it left behind. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/20000/20307/EasternEurope_TMO_2008211_lrg.jpg July 29, 2008 (3.14 MB JPEG) eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/20000/20307/EasternEurope_TMO_2008195_lrg.jpg July 13, 2008 (2.16 MB JPEG) Heavy rain falling in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine pushed the Dnister and Prut Rivers over their banks on July 27-28, 2008. The flooding, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, was the worst the region had experienced in decades. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured this view of the flooded rivers on July 29, a day after the floods peaked. In Ukraine, at least 22 people died in the storms and floods. Another five died in earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14989 flooding in Romania, south of the region shown here, said the Associated Press. The overflowing rivers are dark blue in this image, which includes a combination of visible and infrared light. Sections of the Dnister River and the Prut River are lighter in color than the most visibly flooded part of the Dnister River. The dusty blue color is from mingled water and mud and indicates that either the soil along the rivers is saturated or that the water is thick with sediment. A scattering of small clouds, bright turquoise and white in this type of image, partially obscures the flood scene. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the floods damaged 40,000 houses; 30,000 hectares of cropland; and 700 kilometers of roads in Ukraine. Though none of the damage is visible in this wide-view image, it is evident that agriculture is extensive in this part of Ukraine. Plant-covered land is bright green. The natural vegetation in the Carpathian Mountains is darker in tone than vegetation elsewhere. Fields of crops form extremely bright green spots on the image. Land that has been burned, probably to manage crops, is tan-red, while other non-vegetated land is tan. Associated Press. (2008, July 28). ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gbi8pFQTd-uaf_7Dg3PCBIFnjfvQD926PJ500 22 dead in Ukraine flooding. Accessed July 31, 2008. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. (2008, July 31). http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-7H3C88?OpenDocument&rc=4&emid=FL-2008-000117-ROM Worst flooding in decades devastated Central and Eastern Europe. Published on ReliefWeb. Accessed July 31, 2008. NASA images courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

Two cyclones, Olaf a powerful Category 4 cyclone and Nancy a weaker but still strong Category 2 cyclone, are together threatening the Cook Islands and the islands of Samoa in the South Pacific. This spectacular image from TRMM, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, shows Cyclone Olaf in the upper left as it is approaching the islands of Samoa and Cyclone Nancy in the lower right as it heads towards Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The image was taken at 15:34 UTC on February 15, 2005, and shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity as seen from above by the TRMM satellite. Rain rates in the center swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), the first and only precipitation radar in space, while rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). At the time of this image, Olaf was a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds estimated at 120 knots (138 mph) by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and was in the process of intensifying. Nancy, meanwhile, was a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds estimated at 95 knots (109 mph) and was beginning to weaken. These characterizations are supported by TRMM, which shows that Olaf has much better banding in the rain field as evidenced by the green arcs of moderate rain intensity and a tight, closed eye (green circle). Nancy exhibits no well-defined eye, and the banding is much less evident. When two cyclones come within close proximity and their circulations begin to interact with each other, two possible interactions can occur. One interaction is known as the Fujiwara effect, wherein the cyclones begin circling around each another. The other possibility is that the outflow from one storm impedes the outflow from the other storm, weakening it. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Image produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).

Winter blasted the Eastern United States one day before winter's solstice as chilly Arctic air swept over the region. The snow that fell over the northeast, in the mid-Atlantic states and across the Appalachian Mountains in the Midwest can be seen in this image, taken by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view (SeaWiFS) Sensor flying on the OrbView-2 satellite on December 20, 2004. The clouds patterns also attest to the frigid winter weather. All of the clouds along the eastern seaboard seem to be shaped by strong winds blowing out of the northwest. Clouds over Lake Ontario, just above the center of the image, show a similar pattern, indicating that cold northern winds probably dominated the entire eastern half of the country. To the north, winter seems to have an icy grip on Canada as well. The country is covered with a white blanket of snow. NASA image courtesy the seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html SeaWiFS Project , NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and www.orbimage.com/ ORBIMAGE . NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with www.orbimage.com/ ORBIMAGE .

Already saturated from a heavier-than-normal summer monsoon season, rivers and reservoirs along Mexico's Gulf coast swelled to overflowing in the wake of Tropical Storm Larry. The storm came ashore on October 5, 2003 and moved slowly across the Yucatan peninsula dumping as much as 20 inches of rain in coastal areas and 4-10 inches in the interior. See earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=11759'' target=outlink>Tropical Depression Larry for rainfall totals between September 30 and October 7, 2003. Clouds, light blue in this false color image, still lingered over the southern regions of Mexico's Veracruz state on October 8, 2003 (top). Standing water appears dark blue and black, while vegetation is bright green. Bare earth is light pinkish tan. Running from the coast southwest across the peninsula, the San Juan River is most noticeably flooded in the top image. The Miguel Aleman Reservoir, center left, also appears to be much fuller that it was on May 5, 2003 (bottom). Both of these false-color images were taken by the modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on the Terra satellite. The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

Typhoon Man-yi was the fourth named storm of the western Pacific's typhoon season. Man-yi started as a tropical depression in the western Pacific on July 8, 2007, among the islands of Micronesia. The storm gradually built power to typhoon status on July 10. As of July 11, forecasters were calling for Man-Yi to strengthen to www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshs.shtml Category 4 (Super Typhoon) status, with sustained winds in the storm's core predicted to reach at least 210 kilometers per hour (131 miles per hour). This data visualization of the storm shows observations from the QuikSCAT satellite on July 11, 2007, at 09:00 UTC (7:00 p.m. local time). At this time, Man-Yi appeared as a well-developed typhoon; its peak winds were around 165 km/hr (110 mph; 95 knots). The image depicts wind speed in color and wind direction with small barbs. White barbs point to areas of heavy rain. QuikSCAT measurements of the wind strength of Man-Yi and other tropical cyclones can be slower than actual wind speeds. QuikSCAT's scatterometer sends pulses of microwave energy through the atmosphere to the ocean and measures the energy that bounces back from the wind-roughened surface. The energy of the microwave pulses changes depending on wind speed and direction. To relate the radar signal to actual wind speed, scientists compare measurements taken from buoys and other ground stations to data the satellite acquired at the same time and place. Because the high wind speeds generated by cyclones are rare, scientists do not have corresponding ground information to know how to translate data from the satellite for wind speeds above 50 knots (about 93 km/hr or 58 mph). Also, the unusually heavy rain found in a cyclone distorts the microwave pulses in a number of ways, making a conversion to exact wind speed difficult. Instead, the scatterometer provides a nice picture of the relative wind speeds within the storm and shows wind direction. NASA image courtesy of David Long, Brigham Young University, on the winds.jpl.nasa.gov/ QuikSCAT Science Team , and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In the Okanogan Range Mountains of northern Washington, the Tripod Complex Fire has been challenging firefighters since late July 2006. On August 28, 2006, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite showed that the Tripod Fire had company: the Tatoosh Complex to the west. The image reveals one of the firefighters' biggest obstacles -- the rugged terrain. Forested mountains climb high into the sky, their summits often bare of vegetation or capped with snow (lower left). Much of the land is wilderness area, which means that facilities and roads are minimal. According to reports from the www.nifc.gov/information.html National Interagency Fire Center on August 29, the 142,326-acre Tripod Complex Fire was about 48 percent contained, while the 2,550-acre Tatoosh Complex Fire was completely uncontained. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?AERONET_Rimrock/2006240/AERONET_Rimrock.2006240.aqua.2km.jpg additional resolutions. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

A long line of Sahara dust swept across Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara and out over the Canary Islands on March 3, 2004. The dust appears to have originated in Algeria. Winter and spring dust storms are common in Western Africa when the sirocco winds, hot, dry, dust-laden winds, blow north and northwest out of the Sahara desert. This image was taken by the terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite. Later on the same day, the aqua.nasa.gov/ Aqua satellite recorded a rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004063-0303/Sahara2.A2004063.1415.2km.jpg similar scene . As the day progressed, the dust grew thicker and the storm extended farther west. The high resolution image provided above is at MODIS' maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The scene is available in rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004063-0303/Sahara.A2004063.1110.2km.jpg additional resolutions . Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/16000/16382/Romania_TMO_2006116_lrg.jpg April 26, 2006 (4.25 MB) In 2006, springtime flooding continued to threaten communities along the Danube as April rolled into May. Heavy rains and melting snow pushed the river and many of its tributaries over their banks in early April, and by late April, the floods had arrived at the lower reaches of the 2,850-kilometer-long Danube in Romania and Bulgaria. Though water levels on the Danube had begun to drop by May 1, a water-logged dike burst, inundating a wide swath of Romanian farmland with fresh floods. Hundreds of people fled their homes, bringing the total number of evacuees in Romania to about 16,000, reported Reuters. The new floods were clearly visible when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured the top image on May 3, 2006. Water, dark blue to black in these images, stretches over tens of kilometers of land along the northern banks of the Danube. The floods have expanded in the week that passed between May 3 and April 26 (lower image), particularly in the eastern part of the scene. On April 26, a straight line along the eastern edge of the flood shows where a dike was holding water back. By May 3, the dike had failed. On either side of the river, growing crops and bare fields form patchwork squares of tan-pink and vivid green. Clouds are pale blue and white. Both photo-like and false-color images of the flood are available from the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?Europe_3_03/2006123 MODIS Rapid Response Team on a daily basis. NASA images courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

Beginning on November 22, 2006, a major stationary front (boundary between two air masses with different characteristics) released very heavy, sustained rain over Central Panama, flooding the Rio Indio to the west of Lago Gatun and the Panama Canal. The floods caused at least eight deaths, collapsed bridges, and cut off communities, reported The Washington Post. This image shows the intense rainfall that generated the floods. The analysis was produced by the Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, based in part on observations from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission ( trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ TRMM ) satellite collected between November 20 and November 28, 2006. The rain fell in fell in a classic ''bull's-eye'' pattern, with progressively lighter rainfall radiating out from the heaviest rainfall (shown in darker red). The heaviest rain is centered over the Rio Indio watershed west of the Panama Canal. Similarly high rainfall totals for the period are centered over the Caribbean and northern Colombia. Swollen rivers, roiling with mud from runoff and landslides, dumped a plume of sediment into the Caribbean, which can be seen sweeping eastward from the flood region in a rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?CAmerica_3_04/2006330/CAmerica_3_04.2006330.aqua.1km.jpg photo-like satellite image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's aqua.nasa.gov/ Aqua satellite on November 26, two days after flooding was first reported. Sediment colors the ordinarily dark water aquamarine. Sediment plumes derived from numerous small rivers along the southern (Pacific) side of the isthmus and the Archipelago de Las Perlas are also visible. TRMM image courtesy Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC), caption information courtesy Timothy Gubbels (SSAI) and servir.nsstc.nasa.gov/ SERVIR .

A large coccolithophore bloom off the southern coast of Newfoundland colored the normally dark North Atlantic waters a bright turquoise on July 29, 2002. There appears to be another, perhaps larger bloom of a different type of phytoplankton to the southeast of Newfoundland, mostly obscured by clouds in this image. There are also quite a few airplane contrails visible along Newfoundland's west coast. This true-color scene was acquired by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), flying aboard the OrbView-2 satellite. To learn more about coccolithophores, read the /Library/Coccolithophores/ NASA fact sheet , or check out the feature article entitled /Study/Coccoliths/ Changing Currents Color the Bering Sea a New Shade of Blue . Image courtesy the seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html SeaWiFS Project , NASA GSFC, and ORBIMAGE

Fires have been raging in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in southern Georgia since early this month. Three fires, collectively known as the Blackjack Bay Complex Fire, have burned over 95,000 acres in the 400,000 acre refuge. This has affected not only the refuge, but also neighboring private timberland and Stephen Foster State Park. The state park has been closed due to smoke and fire hazard since May 8. Firefighters and natural resource managers for the most part have been allowing the fires to take their natural course through the refuge, while still protecting structures, roads and private property. This image was acquired by Landsat 7's Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor on May 15, 2002. This is a false-color composite using infrared, near-infrared, and green wavelengths. The green areas show lush vegetation while dark brown areas are burn scars from the fires. The large scar in the center of the image is the Blackjack 02 Fire. The smaller scars to the northwest and southeast are the Bay Creek and Number One Island Fires, respectively. Over the weekend, wet and cloudy weather dampened fire activity, and gave firefighters a much needed break. Expected dry weather will keep fire management personnel vigilant this week. The fires were allowed to burn because fire is part of the natural cycle in the swamp, with major fires coming roughly every 30 to 50 years. Like this current one, most fires in the area are started by lightning. A very strong burn clears out vegetation and opens up new prairie spaces, interrupting the succession of plants that would otherwise lead to dominance of cypress, black gums, and bay trees, turning the area from a wetland into a woodland. Fire also releases nutrients locked up in the vegetation back into the soil, fertilizing the next cycle of growth. Although the area is largely swampland and the vegetation is green, it can be very flammable. Much of the ground is peat and can be as much as 15 feet deep. With dry conditions this past winter and spring, enough of the peat is dried out that surface fires can burn through the soil. Image obtained from the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch.

This past winter's unusually thick and widespread ice in Lake Superior has retreated with the arrival of spring. This modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite on April 8, 2003, shows ice relegated to inlets and a few places along the shores of Lakes Superior (center), Michigan (south) and Huron (southeast). The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003098-0408/Superior.A2003098.1840.250m.jpg 250 meters. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

On February 3, 2004, a large dust storm swept westward off the coast of northwest Africa and, for the last two days has been fanning out to the north and west over a large portion of the eastern Atlantic Ocean. This true-color image was acquired on February 6 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Terra satellite. The scene shows the West African coastline from Morocco (upper right) to Guinea Bissau (lower right). Streamers of Saharan Desert dust (tan pixels) continue to blow out from Morocco toward the Canary Islands, while the Cape Verde Islands to the south (bottom center) appear to have taken the full brunt of the dust storm. As it moved westward, the dust appears to have become entrained into a strong southerly air current, creating a vast arc of dust stretching more than 2,000 km. Notice the owind shadow extending northwestward from the Cape Verde Islands. The islands formed a break against the wind, creating a clear pocket of air behind them that is itself being pulled and carried northward with the strong southerly wind. This image is also available in rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2004037-0206/WAfrica.A2004037.1215 additional resolutions . Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

Since the beginning of the satellite era in the mid-1960's, no hurricane has ever been observed in the South Atlantic according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. But on Sunday morning, March 28th, 2004, a storm struck the Brazilian coast that may have changed all of that as forecasters believe it to be the first hurricane ever recorded in that region of the world. The unnamed storm made landfall near the town of Torres just south of the resort town of Laguna in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, about 500 miles south of Rio de Janeiro. There were reports of winds as high as 100 kph (62 mph) in the area. So far reports indicate that 2 persons were killed by the storm with 500 homes destroyed and 20,000 homes damaged leaving 1500 people homeless. The search also goes on for 11 fisherman missing at sea after their 2 boats sank in 13-foot seas off the coast. There is some debate, however, as to whether this storm was actually a true hurricane. Typically, strong wind shear in this part of the South Atlantic makes conditions unfavorable for tropical storm development. However, as has often been seen in the North Atlantic, extratropical systems that move over warm waters can become transformed into tropical systems and take on tropical characteristics. This storm appears to have originated as an extratropical low that moved off the Brazilian coast on the 20th that then became ''cutoff'', meaning it became separated from the the main air flow, on the 22nd of March. Sea surface temperatures were in the mid-70s (in degrees Fahrenheit), about the minimum needed for tropical storm formation. Meteorologists refer to tropical low pressure centers as warm cores because the air in the center of the circulation is warmer then the surrounding environmental air. Extratropical cyclones are typically cold core. The Brazilian weather service believes that the storm was extratropical in nature. As such a storm had thus far never been recorded in that area, there were no aircraft available to study the storm, leaving satellites to do the job of estimating its strength and structure. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite is designed to measure rainfall over the global tropics using the combination of a microwave sensor and the first and only precipitation radar in space. TRMM was able to capture several unique images of the storm as it made its way through the South Atlantic. The first image (top left) was taken at 12:13 UTC on 24 March 2004. It shows the horizontal distribution of rain rates as seen from above by the TRMM satellite. Rain rates in the center swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), while rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). These rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). It shows a comma-shaped cloud pattern indicative of an area of low pressure, but there is no indication of an eye and rain rates are mostly weak (blue areas) with only a few, localized areas of moderate intensity rain (green areas). The next image (top right) taken over two days later at 12:01 UTC on the 26th shows that the storm had become much better organized with an eye apparent in the IR data. A long rainband continues to spiral out from the center extending well out ahead of system as it continues to track off to the west. The PR did not pass over the center in this image, but the TMI indicates a broad, but weak, area of rainfall south of the center. The third image (bottom left) was taken less than a day later at 06:11 UTC on the 27th. The storm now has a clearly defined eye in the IR data, and this time the PR passes directly over the center revealing a nearly complete eyewall with mostly moderate intensity rain (green area) in the southern portion and well-defined spiral banding in the rainfield surrounding the eye with a couple of localized areas of heavy (red areas) rainfall. An estimate by the AMSU (Advanced Microwave Sensor Unit) satellite put the storm's central pressure at 979 mb, equivalent to a minimal Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The final images (bottom right and link) were taken at 11:00 UTC on the 27th of March as the storm was nearing the coast of southern Brazil. It now has a large, well-defined eye and a complete eyewall though rainrates in the eyewall are not particularly intense. The IR image also shows that the storm has a well-developed outflow pattern as cirrus clouds extend out to the west and south of the center. The final image shows a vertical slice through the center. It reveals mainly moderate intensity (yellow areas) rain with an embedded area of heavy rain (red area) in the western eyewall. A single area of intense rain (darker red area) appears in an outer rainband east of the center. For additional images, please visit the trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ TRMM web site. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. Images produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).

Seemingly overnight, widespread biomass burning sprang up over the southern African countries of Democratic Republic of Congo (top), and Angola (bottom). This true-color modis.gsfc.nasa.gov Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from the aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite on May 6, 2003, shows hundreds of fires (red dots) burning across the region. At bottom center is the broad valley and wetlands of the south-flowing Zambezi River. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2003126-0506/Congo.A2003126.1215.250m.jpg 250 meters. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

These animations show the paths of tropical storm Isidore and Hurricane Lili in the Fall of 2002. The GOES thermal infrared (11microns) imagery was acquired from September 23 to October 3, 2002. The still image was acquired 1:45 PM CDT October 2, 2002. Animation by Robert Simmon, based on data provided by NOAA and archived by the NASA rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ GOES Project Science Team

Drought-ravaged forests in Portugal continued to burn in the fourth week of August 2005. Wildfires were burning out of control in several locations, and the government had declared a state of emergency in the central part of the country. This image of the fires (outlined in red) was captured on August 22, 2005, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov Terra satellite. Smoke from dozens of fires detected by MODIS is spreading across the Atlantic Ocean, at image left. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?Europe_3_01/2005234 additional resolutions. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/17000/17916/Australia_TMO_2007009_lrg.jpg January 9, 2007 (1.2 MB) A fresh round of rain over Australia's Channel Country brought a resurgence of floods, reported the www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1844775.htm Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on February 10, 2007. Heavy rains filled the creeks and channels of southwestern Queensland and northeastern South Australia at the end of January, but those floods had started to recede when another storm brought additional moisture on February 9 and 10. The new floods cut off the town of Birdsville near the Queensland-South Australia border for the second time in 2007, reported ABC News. The mud-laden flood water colored the landscape a brilliant blue on February 12, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite captured the top image. This type of image, made with both visible and infrared light, typically displays water as dark blue or black. In this case, the water contains light-scattering dirt, which gives it the turquoise color seen here. The barren desert landscape is tan and pink, while vegetation is green. The lower image, provided to show the region before the floods started, was taken on January 9, 2007. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.

Clouds over the December 16-17 weekend may have kept temperatures down a bit, but they apparently did little to quench dozens of large fires raging in the Barry Mountains of Victoria, Australia. This image of the area was captured on December 18, 2006, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's aqua.nasa.gov Aqua satellite. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are outlined in red. Thick smoke billows eastward from the fires across Victoria and New South Wales. Fires burned throughout the state during December. The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. An image from the previous satellite overpass was stitched to the east (right) edge to show the extent of the smoke over the Tasman Sea. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?Australia6 twice-daily images of the region in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that highlights burned areas and openly flaming fire fronts. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

Dust plumes blew over the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia in mid-March 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov Terra satellite took this picture on March 14, 2008. In this image, a thick plume of dust blows over Iran, the Persian Gulf, the island nation of Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. The dust narrowly misses the Qatar Peninsula. Although source points for the plumes are not apparent in this image, the dust appears to blow from the north and move in a clockwise direction to the southwest. West of the most conspicuous dust plume, smaller plumes blow over Saudi Arabia. Clear skies immediately east of these smaller plumes suggest that the plumes originate within Saudi Arabia. Clouds appear over Iran in the upper right corner of this image, and they could be associated with the same weather system that stirred the dust. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Rapid Response team. Caption by Michon Scott.

In northwestern Spain and Portugal dozens of fires were racing through dry forests in early August 2006. This image of the area was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov Terra satellite on August 9, 2006. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires are marked in red. Thick smoke spreads out in a gray-brown plume to the west. Windy, dry weather was making the fires difficult to contain. According to news reports, many of the fires in Spain appear to have been set by arsonists. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?Spain twice-daily images at additional resolutions. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

As October drew to a close, Hurricane Paul was approaching the southern tip of Mexico's Baja Peninsula. The sixteenth named Pacific storm of the 2006 season, Paul was whipping up sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour (105 miles per hour) at the time of the National Hurricane Center's 11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time briefing on October 23. The storm track and intensity forecasts for Paul were still uncertain at that time, but landfall along the southern tip of Baja Peninsula as a strong storm was still a possibility. This data visualization of Hurricane Paul shows wind speed in color and wind direction with small barbs. White barbs point to areas of heavy rain. The highest wind speeds, shown in purple, surround the center of the storm. The data were obtained by NASA's winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index.cfm QuikSCAT satellite on October 23, 2006, at 01:46 UTC (8:46 a.m. local time). Paul appears to be symmetrically shaped in this image, with wind direction barbs showing that the center of the storm has a well-defined spiral pattern around the eye. The strongest winds form a bullseye pattern around the central, calmer region of the eye of the storm. Aircraft and buoy-based measurements of the wind strength of Hurricane Paul would likely show sustained winds higher than those estimated from QuikSCAT observations. This difference is because the power of the storm makes accurate measurements from satellite difficult. The scatterometer sends pulses of microwave energy through the atmosphere to the ocean surface, and measures the energy that bounces back from the wind-roughened surface. The energy of the microwave pulses changes depending on wind speed and direction. Tropical cyclones (the generic term for hurricanes and typhoons), however, are difficult to measure. To relate the radar signal the satellite measures to actual wind speed, scientists compare measurements taken from buoys and other ground stations to data the satellite acquired at the same time and place. Because the high wind speeds generated by cyclones are rare, scientists do not have corresponding ground information to know how to translate data from the satellite for wind speeds above 50 knots (about 93 km/hr or 58 mph). Also, the unusually heavy rain found in a cyclone distorts the microwave pulses in a number of ways, making a conversion to accurate wind speed difficult. Instead, the scatterometer provides a picture of the relative wind speeds within the storm, as well as wind direction. These pieces of information can let meteorologists know where and when a storm's center of circulation has developed. www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastprofile.shtml Tropical Cyclone Climatology from the National Hurricane Center www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastall.shtml Seasonal Archive of tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans, from the National Hurricane Center www.nhc.noaa.gov/ National Hurricane Center Home page, which shows all current Atlantic and Eastern Pacific forecasts and warnings NASA image courtesy of David Long, Brigham Young University, on the winds.jpl.nasa.gov/ QuikSCAT Science Team , and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/14000/14123/India_TMO_2004276_lrg.jpg October 2, 2004 (Terra) (3.96 Mb) On October 13, 2004, the rivers of northeastern India and Bangladesh remained swollen after a tropical depression dumped heavy rain over the region for several days the previous week. The storm is being called the worst non-monsoon storm in a decade, and the floods it triggered were deadly. To date, over 150 people have been confirmed dead as a direct result of the floods, according to media reports. This pair of false-color images, both acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ( modis.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS ) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov/ Terra satellite, shows the extent of the floods. The most deadly flooding occurred in the Goalpara district of India's Assam state, shown in the top right corner of these images. The largest loss of life occurred in floods along the earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=12522 Jamuna River and in the nearly Himalayan foothills. However, as the image taken on October 13 shows, other rivers were also flooded. The normally wide Brahmaputra has expanded further, and to its southeast, Bangladesh's Chalan Bil River is also swollen. In West Bengal, India, on the left side of the image, the Hugli River looks flooded. The large images provided above have a resolution of 250 meters per pixel. Both the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?FAS_Bangladesh/2004287 October 13 and the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?FAS_Bangladesh/2004276 October 2 images are available in additional resolutions and formats, including a true-color view of the scene. In the above false-color images, water is dark blue and black, clouds are light blue, and vegetation is green. NASA images courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

Typhoon Namtheun moves steadily closer to Japan as it churns over the northwest Pacific Ocean. When the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) acquired this image on July 28, 2004, the storm had weakened slightly, with maximum sustained winds estimated to be 80 knots (92 mph). The https://metoc.npmoc.navy.mil//jtwc.html Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Namtheun to move south over Kyushu, southern Japan, in a line that would take it down the center of this image. Image provided by the seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ SeaWiFS Project , NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

Flood-weary New Orleans found its streets filling with water once more on October 22, 2007, as heavy rain fell over the city. The rain came from a low-pressure system that moved over Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama from the Gulf of Mexico between October 20 and October 23. This image, made with the Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, shows rainfall totals during that three-day period. Based on data collected by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission ( trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/ TRMM ) satellite, the MPA is used to monitor rainfall over the global tropics. The analysis shows that more than 200 millimeters (about 8 inches) of rain, represented by a band of red, fell in southeast Louisiana between October 20 and October 23. This area of intense rain is surrounded by a broader band of heavy rain with rainfall totals ranging from 200 millimeters (8 inches, orange) to 50 millimeters (2 inches, blue). A trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/trmm_rain/Events/gulf_coast_rain_16-23oct07_graph.gif graph charting the amount of rain that fell over time reveals that as much as 40 millimeters (1.6 inches) of rain fell per hour between October 20 and October 23. Apart from causing floods in New Orleans, the rain was welcome. A dry spring and summer left most of the southeastern United States in exceptional to severe earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14510&src=map drought. In North Carolina and parts of Georgia, the governors of each state have placed restrictions on non-essential water use as the current water supply may run out in a few months in many communities, said the drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html U.S. Drought Monitor in its October 16 report. Though the rainfall from this storm could not supply enough water to end the drought, it did bring some relief. Image and caption information courtesy of Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC)

In northern Washington, several large fires were burning when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer modis.gsfc.nasa.gov (MODIS) on NASA's terra.nasa.gov Terra passed overhead on September 7, 2006. This photo-like image of the region shows the Tatoosh and Tripod Complexes, as well as the Cedar Creek, Flick Creek, and Tinpan Fires. Smoke had settled into the valleys of rivers and creeks that wind through the rugged mountains. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fire are outlined in red. Information on the status of the fires in this image is available in the daily report on the Website of the www.nifc.gov/nicc National Interagency Fire Center. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?USA1/ twice-daily images of the western United States in a variety of resolutions and formats. NASA image courtesy the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.