Floods in Bolivia

Widespread floods in Bolivia during the final week of January 2006 after thunderstorms inundated the country with heavy rain. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the image of flooding in the southwestern desert on January 29, 2006; this is the image that displays when you first open the page.

The floods appear to have turned this dry desert landscape into a sea of mud. In the false-color combination used to create these images, water is normally black or dark blue as Lake Poopà is in the lower image; this image displays when you place your mouse over the first image. But the flood water in the first image is pale blue, a sign that is it mixed with mud. Clouds are a brighter shade of blue and the desert landscape is pale tan with brushes of green vegetation.