NOAA-20 detection of flooding over California
The Community Software Processing Package (CSPP) includes Flood Detection algorithms that can be applied to VIIRS data at Direct Broadcast sites (such as at CIMSS). The daytime NOAA-20 orbit over California on 22 January 2023 overflew mostly clear skies, resulting in the True Color and False Color imagery shown above, and the diagnosed regions of floods, mainly in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins. Note that flooding in these two river basins can also be a result of agricultural diversions to support rice farming. So a good question is: Was the water put there intentionally — or did it flood? The modest flood signal in the Salinas River basin (south and east of Salinas) is more likely actual flooding.
These images were created using geotiff images from CSPP that were inserted into Google Earth and are courtesy Kathy Strabala, SSEC/CIMSS. VIIRS flood imagery (including imagery displayed in concert with ABI and AHI data) are also available here.