Flooding on the Fitzroy River, Australia

Heavy rains in northwestern Australia early in the week of Feb. 24, 2002, caused flooding all along the Fitzroy River.

Though waters have receded a bit from last week's levels, the Fitzroy River in northwestern Australia continues to overflow its banks. The false-color image of the flood (top) was acquired on March 3, 2002, by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying aboard NASA?s Terra spacecraft.

The flooding began a week and a half ago when roughly 300 mm of rain poured down on the region in a four day period. The water swept over the normally dry landscape and mostly drained into the Fitzroy River, which forms a swollen black crescent in the middle of the top image. Additional flooding can be seen just north of the river, in the top image, and around King Sound, which is the bay that the river runs into. During the dry season the river resembles a thin black line (bottom image, acquired on Feb. 15, 2002.

In these false-color images, green shows land surface and black is water. The pinkish-white patches are clouds. To obtain a high-resolution image of the bottom scene, or to obtain true-color images, visit the MODIS Rapid Response Image Gallery.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS

  • Start Date

    2002-03-03

  • Event Start Date

    2002-02-25

  • NH Image ID

    2117

  • NH Event ID

    2111

  • NH Posting Date

    2002-03-04