Hurricane Katrina: A NASA Satellite Video Retrospective

In early August 2005, Katrina was just a name. By September, it had become synonymous with the costliest and one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in U.S. history.

Five years later, NASA is revisiting Hurricane Katrina with a short video that shows the storm as captured by NASA satellites. NASA provides space-based satellite observations, field research missions, and computer climate modeling to further scientists' understanding of these storms. NASA also provides measurements and modeling of global sea surface temperatures, precipitation, winds and ocean heat content -- all ingredients that contribute to the formation of tropical cyclones (the general name for typhoons, tropical storms and hurricanes).

On Aug. 29, 2005, after passing over the Caribbean and Florida, Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast as a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. As hurricanes go, Katrina was actually only moderate in size when it reached the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts, having weakened from a category 5 the day before. However, Katrina had a very wide footprint, which caused a broad area of large ocean swells to develop within the Gulf of Mexico. As the hurricane made its final landfall, the resulting storm surge was massive and unrelenting. Ultimately, this storm surge was responsible for much of the damage as it flooded coastal communities, overwhelmed levees, and left at least 80 percent of New Orleans underwater.

By the time the hurricane subsided, Katrina had claimed more than 1,800 human lives and caused roughly $125 billion in damages.

As scientists and rescue organizations worked on the ground to prepare for the hurricane and assist in its wake, NASA provided data gathered from a series of Earth-observing satellites to help predict the hurricane's path and intensity. In the aftermath, NASA satellites also helped identify areas hardest hit.

In this 3 1/2-minute video created by NASA-TV producer Jennifer Shoemaker at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., viewers will see many different kinds of data NASA satellites gathered about the storm. The video contains a sampling of the kinds of things NASA studies about hurricanes. Various additional data products are created in hurricane and post-hurricane research that are not depicted in the video.



The video opens with Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures data from an instrument called AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System) that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Warm ocean waters (of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer) provided energy to fuel the growing storm. Next, the MISR (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured the growth of cloud tops in the gathering storm.

Just before landfall, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite data revealed "hot towers" hidden within the hurricane -- powerful thunderstorms that helped intensify Katrina. TRMM also captured data on rainfall amounts throughout the hurricane's lifecycle.

Finally, the video shows Landsat satellite imagery of New Orleans before and during the flooding, as well as a more recent view of a city still rebuilding from the hurricane some five years later.

Katrina was just one of 28 named tropical cyclones during the 2005 hurricane season, but due to the tragedy it caused, it remains the one most remembered. The World Meteorological Organization has since retired the name "Katrina" from its list of hurricane names. As such, there will never be another Hurricane Katrina.

Meanwhile, NASA satellites continue to provide satellite data to study tropical cyclones around the world and to help forecasters make better predictions about storm's behavior and hurricane response organizations to better prepare for those yet to come. NASA also studies the effects of hurricanes long after the storm has passed, in order to better understand effects of large storms, which will ultimately help in restoration and preparation efforts in the future.

NASA Art Contestants Lasso

NASA Art Contestants Lasso Their Imaginations to the Moon

On your way home, you find it a little hard to breathe. Your breathing becomes shorter as your heart rate gets faster. Come to find out, your personal oxygen tank is low, so you stop at the oxygen station to get a refill, just to be on the safe side. As you are filling your oxygen tank, you talk with the person next to you about the craters around your home, meteor showers and the latest gossip of life on earth.

Once you fill your tank, your heart rate and breathing return to normal. You get home, call it a day, and buckle up in your bed near the ceiling to get a good night's rest.Scenarios like this are what more than 200 college and high school students thought of when creating art and design entries to submit to NASA's "2010 Life and Work on the Moon Art and Design Contest." This may seem like a simple theme to apply when creating original artwork, but it was not as easy as one would think for these talented students.

Not only did they need to imagine and create original art related to life and work on the Moon, but the art needed to portray life that could survive the Moon's harsh conditions. Students needed to ask themselves, what would fuel a spacecraft, what types of food would people eat, how would there be enough oxygen, and many more questions like these.Students expressed their creativity and innovation pertaining to life and work on the Moon through many categories, including two-dimensional, three-dimensional, digital art, music, literature and video.

"Offering students the opportunity to express themselves through art allows us to reach out to people who otherwise might not be able to participate in our program of exploration," said Jerry Hartman, Education Lead for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "Plus, the young people come up with a lot of cool stuff!"

A panel of scientists, professional artists and educators from the U.S. and other nations reviewed and judged the students' artwork. Judges based their reviews on three elements. The first was an artist statement that described what inspired the student, what artistic media they chose and why. Second was creativity and artistic expression. The third category and the hardest to judge was the validity of a realistic situation for the Moon's harsh conditions.

Jim Plaxco, third year NASA art contest judge, with his own digital art gallery website, Artsnova, describes how judging validity is the most difficult. "In the case of a painting that consists only of a space-suited astronaut walking on the surface of the Moon - does the person really understand that environment?" said Plaxco. "For example, people without spacesuits on the Moon is kind of a dead giveaway."

Overall winner and high school student, Dalton Mills, from La Crosse, Wis., portrayed a great understanding of realistic conditions for life on the Moon when he created his 3-D animated video, "Moonshot." In his video, he included many valid details for living on the moon, such as water tanks, space transportation, a NASA power pressure unit, solar panels and a greenhouse. The displays of a greenhouse and solar panels added a "Go Green" theme.

Mitchell Peterson, a student from Sheridan College in Wyoming, who received first place for 2-D and music combined, took a different spin on expressing life and work on the moon, by creating a graphite and color pencil drawing with original music, "Beyond the Atmosphere." In his artwork, he added patriotism and color by drawing an American flag. Peterson also included a variety of voice and other sound clips in his original music. For example, he used clips from the Apollo missions and from the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life": "What is it you want? The Moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down."

"As I was growing up I would watch the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," and I thought it would be cool to put the clip about the moon into the music I was making," said Peterson.

Brennan Barrington, from Licking Heights High School in Pataskala, Ohio, received first place for his short story, "Helium 3." Inspired by Jack London's story, "To Build a Fire," Barrington found it rewarding when he accomplished the challenge of creating a lifestyle relevant to the Moon's conditions.

"It was tricky to get all the details of gravity, how the dust moves, and things that like, but I got it done," said Barrington.

NASA inspired students from different cultures and countries to share their ideas and artwork relating to one universal theme: the Moon. More than 40 entries submitted came from non-U.S. locations including Bermuda, China, Columbia, Czech Republic, Georgia, India, Italy, Pakistan, Poland, Slovakia, Thailand, United Kingdom and Venezuela.

The top cash award was $1,000, with smaller cash prizes for high scores in each category. The top non-U.S. students receive engraved plaques acknowledging their achievement. The winning art will be displayed in NASA facilities and museums around the country. This fall, NASA hopes to continue encouraging creativity through original artwork by changing the challenge of the art contest to reflect new NASA missions.
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