Operated by NASA and the French space agency, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission provides a new view of water on land, at the coast, and in the
This image shows SWOT satellite data for water surface height in part of Mendocino County, Northern California, on Jan. 15, before several atmospheric rivers arrived, and on Feb. 4, after the first storms. Light blue and green indicate the highest water levels relative to mean sea level. ocean.
A series of atmospheric rivers drenched California in February, with record amounts of rainfall and hurricane-force winds sweeping across parts of the state. At one point, weather agencies posted flood watches for nearly the entirety of California’s coast. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission captured data on some of the flooding near the community of Manchester, roughly 105 miles north of San Francisco. The satellite is a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, CNES .
The image above shows the area on Jan. 15, before the rain and snow from atmospheric rivers, and then again on Feb. 4, after the first in a series of storms soaked California. Water heights are shown in shades of green and blue, with lighter hues indicating the highest levels relative to mean sea level. Some coastal areas were flooded by both ocean tides and heavy rain, while others were likely flooded only by precipitation.
“SWOT gives us information about flooding that we’ve never had before,” said Ben Hamlington, lead researcher for NASA’s sea level change team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Satellites can provide pictures showing how much of an area is flooded, but unless instruments are already installed on a river or at the coast, it’s difficult to know how conditions evolve during and after a flood.
SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations.
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