Earth from Space - Image Description

Mississippi Floods in Missouri and Tennessee

Note: This caption refers to the image versions labeled "NASA's Earth Observatory web site".

Along the border between Tennessee and southeastern Missouri, the Mississippi River spilled onto floodplains, submerging agricultural fields on either side of the river. Taken from an altitude of 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth, this astronaut photo shows muddy water resting on croplands. In this image, north is toward the lower right.

The land cover around the Mississippi in this region is a combination of forest (dark green) and cropland (rectangles of green and brown). Where muddy water has inundated fields, the borders of some fields peek through the water, appearing as green lines. Along the eastern bank of the Mississippi (image center), a double loop pushes away from the river. This long-term feature (not the result of 2011 flooding) is likely transitioning to an oxbow lake.

This service is provided by the International Space Station program and the JSC Earth Science & Remote Sensing Unit, ARES Division, Exploration Integration Science Directorate.