Floods in Western Australia (false color)

  • Credit

    Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

On April 5, 2004, days after Tropical Cyclone Fay made landfall near the DeGrey River in Western Australia, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite captured this image of flooding on the normally dry Western Plateau. The storm caused relatively little damage, but it did fill the seasonal saltpan lakes, seen as light blue in the false color image. In the lower right corner of the image is Lake Disappointment. Above, a series of seasonal lakes including Lake Dora, Lake George, and Lake Auld form a “u” shape that resembles the bend in a river. Between the lakes and the green to the north is the Great Sandy Desert. In the false color image, vegetation is bright green, bare ground is tan and pink, water is blue and black, and clouds are light blue.

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS
  • Visualization Date

    2004-04-25