When a storm system passed through Mississippi in April 2014, it dropped between 2 to 8 inches (5 to 20 centimeters) of rain over some parts of the state. The heavy rainfall pushed numerous rivers to flood stage. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this false-color image of the swollen Pearl and Big Black rivers on April 10, 2014. The lower image, also from Terra MODIS, shows the area on March 20, 2014, before the storms passed through. The images were made with short-wave and near-infrared light. Water is black; land with living vegetation is green. The brown areas are deciduous forests with few photosynthesizing leaves, bare fields, or grassy areas. Turn on the comparison tool to see the differences between the two images.
NASA image courtesy, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Adam Voiland.
