Nighttime satellite image of Houston, Texas, caught in April 2024, revealing a regular night for city lights.Nighttime satellite image of Houston, Texas, captured on May 18, 2024, after devastating winds left many individuals without power.A heat dome in May 2024 activated record temperatures and severe storms in Central America and the U.S. Destructive winds left numerous individuals in Houston, the most populous city in Texas, without power.For much of May 2024, a potent heat dome sat over the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, triggering sweltering temperature levels that exceeded in Central America. As air along its northern edge encountered cooler, drier air in the United States, climatic instability and extreme thunderstorms formed over the south-central U.S.Storms and Power Outages in TexasOn May 16, 2024, a specifically strong and long-lasting band of storms– a derecho– charged across Central Texas and struck Houston. The storm released twisters and harmful winds that reached 100 miles (60 kilometers) per hour. It shattered windows, tore roofs off homes, and toppled trees and power lines. Nearly one million homes and businesses in the Greater Houston location lost power, according to news reports.Satellite Imaging of Nighttime LightsPower interruptions were prevalent enough to be noticeable in nighttime satellite images. The left map above is a composite revealing normal night light conditions in April 2024; the right map reveals the very same area early on May 18, after the derecho. Numerous blackouts happened within the Beltway, especially in areas in the northern part of Houston and the surrounding suburbs.The maps are based upon information from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite. VIIRS measures nighttime light emissions and reflections by means of its day-night band. This sensing ability makes it possible to distinguish the strength of lights and to observe how they change.The maps come from the Black Marble HD product, offered by Ranjay Shrestha of the NASA Black Marble science team. The base map was developed from data collected by Landsat 9. Dark gray areas with inbounds marker are where cloud cover avoided VIIRS from gathering night lights data. The information were processed by the Black Marble group to represent modifications in the landscape, the environment, and the Moon phase, and to filter out stray light from sources that are not electrical lights.Recovery and Ongoing MonitoringThe return of electricity to lots of areas that lost it was obvious in data gathered on May 19 and 20. Roughly 50,000 clients in Harris County, Texas, were still waiting for power to be brought back on May 22, 2024, according to information assembled by PowerOutage.US from openly accessible sources.”The capability of satellite-derived nighttime lights items, such as the Black Marble, to record widespread blackouts in a dispersed energy system is important for immediate action, resource allowance, and damage control,” stated Shrestha.Response to Rising Temperatures and Disaster ReliefTemperatures skyrocketed in Texas in the days following the derecho, with highs increasing above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) in Houston. To protect residents without air conditioning from harmful levels of heat, city authorities set up cooling and charging centers throughout the city.NASAs Earth Applied Sciences Disasters program area has been triggered to support the Federal Emergency Management Agencys action to the occasion. As brand-new details appears, the team will be publishing maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal.NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, utilizing Black Marble data thanks to Ranjay Shrestha/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The data were processed by the Black Marble group to account for modifications in the landscape, the environment, and the Moon stage, and to filter out stray light from sources that are not electric lights.Recovery and Ongoing MonitoringThe return of electricity to many locations that lost it was obvious in information gathered on May 19 and 20. Approximately 50,000 consumers in Harris County, Texas, were still waiting for power to be restored on May 22, 2024, according to data compiled by PowerOutage.US from openly available sources. As new details becomes offered, the group will be posting maps and data items on its open-access mapping portal.NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Black Marble data courtesy of Ranjay Shrestha/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
