Heavy rains brought flooding to the Australian island state, Tasmania. The flooding, which began on January 28, 2004, and recommenced when heavy storms rolled across the island on January 30, cut off two coastal towns: Musselroe Bay and Ansons Bay. Northeast Tasmania, shown in this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image pair, was particularly hard-hit. The false color image acquired on January 31 by the Aqua satellite shows what appears to be the South Esk River (top center) swollen beyond its normal size. The River was barely visible in an image acquired by the Terra satellite on January 14, before the rain began. News reports say that the South Esk River closed at least one major road as the floodwaters moved downstream.
In these false-color images, clouds are light blue, vegetation is green, and water is dark blue and black. The high resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.
Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
