Spring Floods in Central Europe

Spring Floods in Central Europe

Nestled in the crook of the Carpathian Mountains, the Tisza River and its tributaries channel water from the mountains� heights to the Danube River. On March 22, 2005, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA�s Terra satellite captured the top image of the river system. Compared to the lower MODIS image, acquired before the winter on October 6, 2004, the rivers are swollen with spring run-off. Though rivers normally run higher in the spring than in the fall, in 2005 river levels have been higher than normal after unusually heavy snowfall blanketed the region. Spring rains have added to the melting snow to increase the magnitude of the floods.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response and the Goddard Earth Sciences DAAC.