The NASA Earth Observatory site brings us amazing images from time to time (such as some of these), and they’re back with some fresh imagery from the tornadoes that have ripped across the central United States in recent weeks.
The Mayflower tornado hit on April 27 and was rated an EF4. It left a path nearly 41 miles long and destroyed between 400-500 homes. From the Earth Observatory site:
At MODIS resolution, the entire town of Mayflower is barely distinguishable; but at ALI’s top resolution of 10 meters per pixel, it is possible to distinguish between individual buildings. In this ALI image, a trail of damaged trees and homes is visible near Interstate 40. The storm moved in a northeasterly direction, hitting the southern part of Mayflower first, then crossing I-40, and flattening neighborhoods along the shore of Lake Taylor.
You can read more on the NASA Earth Observatory site or download this KML file
to view it for yourself in Google Earth.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.