November 17, 2020 - Flooding in South Florida

    Follow @NASA_MODIS

   Flooding in South Florida
    Tweet
    Share

   On October 15, 2020, South Florida’s rainy season was officially
   closed, leaving residents expecting a warm, dry winter. They did not
   count on a surprise soaking from Hurricane Eta.

   After battering Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane early in November,
   Eta took aim at Cuba and Florida. Eta made landfall over Lower
   Matecumbe Key, Florida late on November 8 as a super-soaker tropical
   storm that carried maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 km/h). After
   crossing the Key, Eta lingered in the Gulf of Mexico before making a
   second Florida landfall on November 12 over Cedar Key (North Florida).

   Thanks to Eta’s lingering approach and double landfall, parts of South
   Florida suffered rain and storm surge for five days. After the first
   Florida landfall, the National Weather Service estimated that over a
   foot of rain had fallen over some areas. On November 12, the South
   Florida Sun Sentinel stated that isolated total rain accumulation from
   Eta was in the range of 20-25 inches, with more to be added overnight.

   On November 15, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a false-color image
   showing floodwater inundating South Florida. in this image, vegetated
   land appears bright green, deep water inky-black, and clouds looks
   white with a tint of electric blue. Dark floodwaters lie across
   Southern Florida between Lake Okeechobee and the southern tip of the
   state – a distance of about 110 miles (177 km).

   To appreciate the extent of flooding, it is helpful to compare before
   and after images. Thanks to the NASA Worldview app, we can easily
   compare this image and one acquired on October 13. The October 13 image
   was acquired near the end of the South Florida “wet season”, but before
   Eta’s impact on the region. The comparison can be seen  here.

   The NASA Worldview app provides a satellite's perspective of the planet
   as it looks today and as it has in the past through daily satellite
   images. Worldview is part of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and
   Information System. EOSDIS makes the agency's large repository of data
   accessible and freely available to the public.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 10/15/2020
   Resolutions:  1km (54 KB),  500m (180 KB),  250m (524.4 KB)
   Bands Used: 7,2,1
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2020-11-17
 
