As portable pumps were brought in to supplement the permanent pumps already hard at work, as much as 380 cubic meters (380,000 liters or 23,190,000 cubic inches) of water were being pumped out of New Orleans every second, according to the U.S. In the two and a half weeks that had passed since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, pumps had been working nonstop to return the water to Lake Pontchartrain. The floods that buried up to 80 percent of New Orleans had noticeably subsided by September 15, 2005, when the top image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite. River discharge should be closely monitored to account for this factor in evaluating potential flood conditions in the event of further hurricanes. With hurricane season not over until November 30, the potential exists for significant flooding, particularly if new rain water is deposited by new hurricanes when river discharge peaks up as a result of previous rainfalls. Basins the size of the Mississippi can take up to several weeks before such excess rainfall significantly increases the amount of river discharge. The two hurricanes deposited excessive rainfall over extensive regions of the Mississippi River basin. The yellow color corresponds to an increase of approximately 10 percent or more in surface soil moisture according to the calibration site of Lonoke, Ark. The backscatter can be calibrated to measure increases in surface soil moisture resulting from rainfall. The color scale depicts increases in radar backscatter (in decibels) between the current measurement and the mean of measurements obtained during the previous two weeks. These results demonstrate the capability of satellite scatterometers to monitor changes in surface water on land. The above images, derived from NASA QuikSCAT satellite data, show the extensive pattern of rain water deposited by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on land surfaces over several states in the southern and eastern United States. ![]() Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Storm Track Map and Animation
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