A slow-moving rainstorm in mid-July 2021 caused rivers and reservoirs to spill over their banks, leading to deadly flooding in central China. A new storm has now come ashore, bringing even more rain to the country.
Flooding from the mid-July rainstorm was still visible on July 26, 2021, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a false-color image of northern Henan province. For comparison, the same area is shown on July 20, 2020.
According to news reports, the rainstorm dropped a year’s worth of rain on Zhengzhou, the province’s capital city, over the span of three days. The storm then tracked north and dropped 26 centimeters (10 inches) of rain within a span of two hours on the city of Xinxiang. The region’s network of rivers and reservoirs overflowed, and floodwaters submerged transportation infrastructure and buildings, trapping many people and affecting millions.
Continue reading at NASA Earth Observatory
Image via NASA Earth Observatory