{"id":13958,"date":"2013-09-17T23:59:39","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T23:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=13958"},"modified":"2013-10-01T19:58:51","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T19:58:51","slug":"update-on-the-colorado-flooding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/13958","title":{"rendered":"Update on the Colorado flooding"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Before<\/a>

Before (07 September) and after (17 September) MODIS false-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images<\/p><\/div>\n

A comparison of “before” (07 September 2013<\/strong><\/a>) and “after” (17 September 2013<\/strong><\/a>) 250-meter resolution MODIS false-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images from the SSEC MODIS Today<\/strong><\/a> site (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed a dramatic change in the appearance of the South Platte River that flows northeastward across northeastern Colorado. Following the record-setting rainfall across much of the Front Range of Colorado (previous blog post<\/strong><\/a>), much of this water (darker blue in appearance on the RGB images)<\/em> was being carried across northeastern Colorado by the South Platte River and its tributaries.<\/p>\n

Hydrographs for 3 different locations along the South Platte River in Colorado (Kersey<\/strong><\/a>, Balzac<\/strong><\/a>, and Julesburg<\/strong><\/a>, below<\/strong>)<\/em> showed the actual and forecast maximum river crests — note that the peak river crest of 18.79 feet at Kersey eclipsed the previous record of 11.7 feet set in 1973.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A comparison of AWIPS images of consecutive overpasses (1 hour and 44 minutes apart)<\/em> of Suomi NPP VIIRS 1.61 \u00c2\u00b5m near-IR data on 14 September (below)<\/strong><\/em> appeared to indicate that the dark signal of the leading edge of the South Platte River flooding could be seen moving rapidly southeastward along that particular portion of the river.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Suomi NPP VIIRS 1.61 \u00c2\u00b5m image at 19:58 UTC on 17 September (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed that the dark signature of flooding along the South Platte River had nearly reached the Colorado\/Nebraska border.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that the South Platte River flooding is not evident on the corresponding 0.64 \u00c2\u00b5m VIIRS visible channel image (below)<\/strong><\/em> — this is due to the fact that there is not much contrast between the sediment-rich water and the adjacent dry soils (much of northeastern Colorado remains in a drought<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS 0.64 \u00c2\u00b5m visible channel and 1.61 \u00c2\u00b5m near-IR channel images<\/p><\/div>\n

===== 18 September Update =====<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS 1.61 \u00c2\u00b5m near-IR images (17 vs 18 September)<\/p><\/div>\n

A comparison of AWIPS images of Suomi NPP VIIRS 1.61 \u00c2\u00b5m near-IR images (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed the progression of the leading edge of the flooding along the South Platte River in a 24-hour period (from 19:58 UTC on 17 September to 19:42 UTC on 18 September). The dark signal of river flooding had extended northeastward across the Nebraska border.<\/p>\n

The hydrograph for Julesburg<\/strong><\/a> in far northeastern Colorado (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed that the river had already crested above the previous record stage of 10.4 feet.<\/p>\n

\"Julesburg,<\/a>

Julesburg, Colorado hydrograph<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A comparison of “before” (07 September 2013) and “after” (17 September 2013) 250-meter resolution MODIS false-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images from the SSEC MODIS Today site (above) showed a dramatic change in the appearance of the South Platte River that flows northeastward across northeastern Colorado. Following the record-setting rainfall across much of the Front Range of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":14054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12,45,49,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heavy-rain-flooding","category-modis","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-suomi_npp","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13958"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13968,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958\/revisions\/13968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}