Though Cyclone Clare caused little damage when it initially came ashore over northwestern Australia on January 10, 2006, it triggered widespread flooding as it moved south across Western Australia. The floods forced the government to declare disaster areas in at least three communities in southwestern Australia.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the top image of flooding in the typically dry Murchison River basin on January 15, 2006. The river is the second longest in Western Australia, but water normally only flows in it during the summer cyclone season. The rest of the year, the river is a dry sand channel, as shown in the lower image, taken by Aqua MODIS on December 26, 2005. The communities most affected by the flooding are south of the area shown in these images.
These images were generated by the MODIS Rapid Response Team, which provides daily images of the region.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at Goddard Space Flight Center.
