May 6, 2024

Dramatic Satellite Images Show Power Outages After Hurricane Ian

September 30, 2022
VIIRS has a low-light sensing unit– the day-night band– that determines nighttime light emissions and reflections. Scientists with the Black Marble Project at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI), and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) processed VIIRS information to show lights prior to and after Hurricane Ian passed through the cities.
September 30, 2022.
” As disasters often affect a whole area, the ability to catch prevalent interruptions in a distributed energy system is incredibly useful for damage evaluation,” stated Ranjay Shrestha, an SSAI scientist with the Black Marble group. “Combining socioeconomic and population data with nighttime light-derived metrics further assists us understand the interaction between power remediation rates and vulnerable populations.”
According to unofficial price quotes, roughly 580,000 of Floridas 11 million business and residential clients were still without power on the afternoon of October 3, below about 2.7 million on September 29. Interruptions were focused around Lee, Charlotte, and Sarasota counties in the southwestern part of the state. Thousands of utility workers from 34 states took a trip to Florida to help restore power lines and other equipment.
The VIIRS day/night band makes it possible to detect the strength of lights and observe their variations. Relief firms often use nighttime imagery to determine locations that are most in need of help and support. “Our team has actually been developing standardized techniques for power failure and healing assessment that intend to help regional communities in improving strength against the impacts of climate change and severe weather events,” said Zhuosen Wang, a Black Marble item primary detective and University of Maryland researcher.
Accuracy is essential for research studies with night lights. Raw, unprocessed images can be deceptive because moonlight, pollution, clouds, seasonal greenery– even the position of the satellite– can change how light is shown and can distort observations. The processing by the Black Marble team accounts for such variations and filters out roaming light from sources that are not electrical lights.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Black Marble data thanks to Ranjay Shrestha/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey, and information from OpenStreetMap.

VIIRS has a low-light sensor– the day-night band– that measures nighttime light emissions and reflections. Scientists with the Black Marble Project at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI), and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) processed VIIRS data to show lights prior to and after Hurricane Ian passed through the cities. Raw, unprocessed images can be misleading because moonlight, contamination, clouds, seasonal plants– even the position of the satellite– can alter how light is shown and can distort observations. The processing by the Black Marble group accounts for such variations and filters out roaming light from sources that are not electric lights.

After Hurricane Ian passed, countless residential and business consumers lost electric power and light.
Numerous cities on the west coast of Florida lost much of their electric power for days after the storm.
Hurricane Ian roared across Florida over September 28– 29, 2022, as one of the most effective storms ever to make landfall in the state. The category-4 typhoon hit the southwestern coast of Florida with several feet of storm surge, backed by continual winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour, prior to discarding more than a foot of rain in broad swaths across the state.
Countless domestic and organization consumers lost electrical power and light in the hours after the storm passed. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA– NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured views of a few of those losses as they appeared on September 30, 2022