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flood

The 2017 Queensland Floods in Sentinel-2 imagery

May 1, 2017

In late March, 2017, Tropical Cyclone Debbie crossed the eastern coast of Australia and then moved on to New Zealand. The heavy rainfall resulted in major floods all along its path. The floods were captured in several Sentinel-2 and Landsat images in early April. The best image we could find is a Sentinel-2 image captured on April 8th of the region around Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia.


The city of Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia.Copernicus Sentinel data, 2017.


The region around Rockhampton.Copernicus Sentinel data, 2017.

The imagery was obtained via the archive on Amazon AWS and processed using GeoSage’s Spectral Discovery tool.

As you can see from the measuring stick in this article the recent flood wasn’t the worst on record, but wasn’t far off.

To view the imagery in Google Earth you can download a low resolution version of the whole Sentinel-2 tile and a high resolution version of just the Rockhampton area. We can’t share the full processed image as it is over 350Mb.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: australia, flood, sentinel-2

Google Earth Imagery Updates – Migrants and floods

January 3, 2017

We have recently been looking at the latest imagery updates added to ‘historical imagery’. So far we have been looking at the US, including wildfires and more wildfires, floods and a tornado.

Today we are moving on to other parts of the world.

Calais Jungle
The Calais Jungle was a refugee and migrant camp in Calais, France, situated next to the English Chanel. Most of the people who lived there were trying to get to the United Kingdom. The camp was evacuated and closed in late October, 2016. The latest image in Google Earth is from August, 2016, so we cannot yet see it after the closure. However, we can see how the camp grew between 2013 and 2016.


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Flooding in India, August, 2016
In August, 2016, eastern and central India experienced severe flooding, killing at least 300 people and affecting millions.

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after

This is part of the Ganges flood plain near Patna, India

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after

Extensive flooding near Patna, India even in areas that are not obviously flood plain.

Flooding in Bangladesh, August, 2016
Also due to the same heavy monsoons that caused the flooding in India above, Bangladesh experienced severe flooding, killing at least 42 people. The imagery is from August 23rd and we believe that the worst of the flooding was over by then, but we can still see some flooded areas.

Flooding in Vietnam, October-December, 2016
Central Vietnam experienced severe flooding at least three times from October to December, 2016. The imagery in Google Earth is from early November.

before
after

It is often hard to tell, even when comparing with older imagery, what is normally or seasonally wet land (lake, river, flood plain) and what is unusual flooding.

Flooding in Japan, August, 2016
Typhoon Lionrock caused major flooding in northern Japan. The imagery in Google Earth is from after the flood, but we can see some of the damage caused.

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after

 
To see the above locations in Google Earth download this KML file. We have also outlined the extent of the relevant imagery for each location.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: flood, what's that image

Google Earth Imagery Updates, Fire, Flood, Tornado!

January 2, 2017

Google recently updated the ‘historical imagery’ layer after nearly six months of no updates. So, there is a lot of interesting new imagery to see. Last week we had a look at some US wildfires. Today, we are staying with the US and having a look at some more wildfires, some floods and a tornado.

Blue Cut Fire, Cajon Pass, California
The Blue Cut Fire destroyed 105 homes and 213 other structures in August, 2016.

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after

 

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Pilot Fire, California.
The Pilot Fire took place just a short distance to the east of the above Blue Cut Fire. We can see the extent of the burn in Google Earth and a number of houses that were saved by effective firefighting. See the KML file at the end of this post for the location in Google Earth.

Cold Springs Fire, Colorado, July, 2016


We can see the fire in progress.


And we can see the burnt area in later imagery.
 

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after

Some houses burnt by the Cold Springs Fire.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Flooding
Back in August we used Sentinel-2 imagery to see the severe flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Read more about the widespread Louisiana flooding event on Wikipedia.

There is now some DigitalGlobe imagery of Baton Rouge showing the flood in various stages:

Kokomo Tornado.
A number of tornadoes struck Indiana in late August, 2016, including one that hit Kokomo, Indiana, destroying a Starbucks in the process. The satellite imagery is not very good quality, although we can see the location of the Starbucks that was destroyed. There is however Street View from before and after the event showing that the Starbucks no longer exists:

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after

See in Google Maps

To find the locations of the imagery above in Google Earth download this KML file

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: fire, flood, tornado, what's that image

Floods around the world as seen in Google Earth

October 7, 2016

Flooding is a remarkably common phenomenon around the globe. Satellite imaging companies often try to capture imagery of the floods as such imagery is useful for governments and emergency services. DigitalGlobe, for example, has its First Look program through which it captures imagery and distributes it to emergency responders. Today we are looking at a few locations that we know about via the FirstLook program and where the imagery has since made its way into Google Earth. However, none of the imagery in today’s locations really captures the full scale of the events. This is due to a number of reasons:

  • There is often no warning for floods. There may be warning for particular types of well-known weather systems such as cyclones and typhoons, or when there are heavy rains in a region the rivers downstream may be expected to flood. But even so, the severity of the flood is hard to predict.
  • Floods follow rain and there are often cloudy conditions during and shortly after a flood, so it may take some time before there are suitable conditions for capturing imagery.
  • In the case of flash floods the event is typically over before the location can be imaged, so all we can expect to see is the damage caused, such as houses or roads washed away.
  • Google only puts high quality imagery in the default layer (more on this at the end of the post).

Eastern Sudan – July / August 2016
In late July and early August there were heavy rains and subsequent flooding in eastern Sudan. According to this article tens of thousands of people were affected and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed. There is a DigitalGlobe image of the town of Sennar and surrounding areas that was captured in response to the floods. Although there is a lot of standing water in the image, we could not find any flooded houses or evidence of houses washed away.

Skopje, Macedonia – August, 2016
In early August, 2016, Skopje Macedonia experienced severe flash flooding, killing at least 21 people. See this article for photos. In this case the imagery in Google Earth comes from CNES / Astrium. We can see some flooded areas, but the imagery does not quite cover the worst affected area (the northern parts of Chento).

Chetwynd, Canada – June, 2016
Chetwynd, Canada, experienced severe flooding in June, 2016 prompting a state of emergency to be declared. There is a DigitalGlobe image of Chetwynd captured after the event. Although we can see wet areas we could not find any washed away roads or bridges. We believe that the worst damage took place in areas not covered by the image.

Wuhan, China – July, 2016
The city of Wuhan was just one of many locations in China that experienced severe flooding in July. There is a CNES / Astrium image captured after the worst of the floods had already subsided, but the river is still very full, flooding some of the buildings along its banks.

In all the above locations we are looking at the imagery in the default layer. There is almost certainly more imagery hidden in ‘historical imagery’ that Google has chosen not to put in the default layer. However, Google has not updated ‘historical imagery’ since early June so we can’t see it. We should also mention Pekalongan City, Indonesia which experienced flooding in June, 2016. We can see bits of a Digital Globe image, but the parts we can see do not cover the affected area.

To see the locations above in Google Earth, download this KML file. We have marked out the extent of the relevant imagery in each location.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: first look, flood, flooding

Cylcone Roanu: Landslide and Floods

June 21, 2016

Cyclone Roanu was, according to Wikipedia, a relatively weak tropical cyclone that, nevertheless, caused severe flooding in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In addition, it caused a number of large landslides in Sri Lanka. The only imagery of the event so far in Google Earth is two patches of imagery of Sri Lanka: an image of the capital, Colombo, showing flooding and a set of images further inland showing a landslide.

The images were captured soon after the cyclone so they are rather cloudy and the light is poor.


Flooding in Colombo


Flooding in Colombo.


Much of the landslide is covered in cloud.

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after

 
Before and after of the tail end of the landslide.

To find the locations shown above in Google Earth, download this KML file.

Filed Under: Sightseeing Tagged With: flood, hurricane, landslide, sri lanka

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