May 7, 2022 - Flooding in Valencia

Flooding in Valencia
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According to several travel websites, the best time to visit Valencia,
Spain is in April and May, the sun-filled days that are the “sweet spot
full of warm weather and void of crazy crowds”. Whatever the average
spring weather (and despite Valencia enjoying 300 sunny days each year,
on average), the spring of 2022 has been extremely unkind to visitors
and residents.

After an exceptionally wet spring, in which the Valencia region
received 19.01 inches (483 mm) of rain since March 1, a severe storm
brought torrential rain to the southern half of Spain in early May,
causing extreme flooding which shut down roads, blocked tunnels, and
caused some residents to require rescue from the rising waters.
According to AccuWeather, within the first three days of May, Valencia
recorded 8.58 inches of rain. This is more than five times the month’s
average amount of rain. Then, on May 4, the deluge somehow worsened to
drench the city with the highest 24-hour rainfall total for the month
of May since 1871, with 7.92 inches (201.1 mm) of rainfall recorded on
that day.

On May 5, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a false-color image of the
Valencia region. This type of false-color image uses visible and
infrared light (MODIS bands 7,2, and 1) to help separate water from
land and vegetation: water appears dark blue, vegetation is bright
green, open land looks tan, and gray pixels mark cities. In this image,
the large city of Valencia can be seen along the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea, just north of the lagoon of the Albufera National
Park. Although it is difficult to appreciate the flooding in the gray
pixels, the southern wetlands near the towns found in the Pobles del
Sud region are heavily inundated.

This one image adequately shows extensive flooding, but to better
appreciate the amount of change over time it is helpful to compare two
images taken at different times. Thanks to the NASA Worldview App, it
is simple compare the image acquired by Aqua MODIS on May 5, just after
the peak of the floods and one acquired by Aqua MODIS on April 17,
prior to the most torrential May rains. To view the roll-over
comparison, simply click here

The NASA Worldview app provides a satellite's perspective of the planet
as it looks today and as it has in the past through daily satellite
images. Worldview is part of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and
Information System. EOSDIS makes the agency's large repository of data
accessible and freely available to the public.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 5/5/2022
Resolutions: 1km (98.2 KB), 500m (209.6 KB), 250m (118.8
KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-05-07

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