The spring floods in the Mississippi River basin extended to the confluence of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers in the southwestern corner of Indiana, pushing the rivers over their banks in May 2011. By early June, flooding had largely receded, and by late June 2011, little flooding remained.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of the Wabash-Ohio confluence on June 23, 2011. Both rivers, as well as Hovey Lake, appear silver-grey in this image, probably due to the reflection of sunlight off the water surface (sunglint). Away from the water, the land is a patchwork of croplands shaped by human design, and floodplains shaped by overflowing rivers.
According to the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, the Ohio River was below flood levels at Mt. Vernon and the J.T. Myers Lock and Dam by June 29, 2011. Minor flooding had occurred, however, upstream on the Wabash River at New Harmony (not pictured) since June 27. At that location, the river was slightly above the flood stage level of 15 feet (5 meters) on June 29, but was expected to drop to well below 10 feet (3 meters) by early July.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Michon Scott.
