In the days after Hurricane Irma drag in across the Caribbean and was headed over mainland US , theLandsat 8satellite was snapping away to document the damage .
NASA has releaseda series of satellite mental imagery showing the Caribbean before and after the tempest on August 25 and September 10 , 2017 . They are some of the least nebulous images of the area taken so far . The natural - color image were enamor using the onboard Operational Land Imager , an advance piece of tomography equipment capable of capturing seeable , near infrared , and shortwave infrared serving of the spectrum .
Aside from the slightly patchy cloud insurance coverage in the post - hurricane look-alike , the independent thing you will notice is the different coloring of the land . In the image from recent - August , the island are a lush vibrant green , while the ones after the hurricane are a duller brown . This is because the hurricane ’s violent 298 klick per time of day ( 185 mile per time of day ) winds literally stripped the acres of much of its tropic botany . to boot , salt nebuliser clap up by the tempest can damage the leaf still on the trees .
The slimly dissimilar chromaticity of the sea is probable to be triggered by differences in the sea ’s surface . choppy waters are less quiet on the surface and therefore reflect less light , so they will appear to be dark .
As you will also notice , some islands appear to have make out better than others . Barbuda was one of the worst affect island of the whole affair ( image above ) . Gaston Browne , quality minister of Antigua and Barbuda , took an aerial survey via helicopter over the islands and estimated 95 percentage of the edifice in Barbuda were damage and a considerable figure of properties were whole veil . The satellite image distinctly shows this wipeout compared to the shot from August 21 , 2017 , before the storm . Antiqua , however , seems to be remarkably green still despite also being hit by the hurricane .
The Virgin Islands also took a battering ( image below ) . Among the widespread looting and damage get to prop , over100 prisoners escapedwhen Hurricane Irma hit the British Virgin Islands .
[ H / TNASA Earth Observatory ]
