News
Flooding and hurricane in Australia seen by altimetry
Australian Northeastern coast is hit by heavy rains occured at the end of 2010 and a strong hurricane early in February 2011. See these events by altimetry.
"Yasi", a huge category 5 hurricane, hit the Northeastern coast of Australia on February 2, 2011 and caused severe damages.
Since the end of 2010, heavy rainfalls hit north and southeastern parts of Australia (states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria).
These strong meteorological events are the signature of La Niña. A strong La Niña event persisted since the 2010 summer. Cold waters well up in the central and eastern Pacific and more intense winds push more water west, where it builds up north of Australia.
Either over ocean or over land, altimetry can enable to monitor water levels or wind speed.
<link fileadmin images news mod_actus yasi_sla_track_20110201.jpg download> |
|---|
Hurricane Yasi intensity overlayed on a merged (SLA in cm) map for the 2nd of February. The hurricane intensity scale is purple for a tropical depression, blue for cat. 1, green for cat. 2, yellow for cat. 3, orange for cat.4 and red for category 5. The dates near the path indicates the date when the hurricane passed. Credits Cnes/CLS Ssalto/Duacs. |
<link fileadmin images news mod_actus yasi_hurricane_j1_wind.png download> |
|---|
Maps of wind speed (in m/s) measured along-track by Jason-1 over the ocean. Only the ground tracks between the 2011/01/30 and the 2011/02/03 are represented. Jason-1 measured some wind speeds (at the ocean surface), more than 15 m/s, when the the cyclone was steering for the coast. See the same maps for <link fileadmin images news mod_actus yasi_hurricane_en_wind.png download>Envisat and <link fileadmin images news mod_actus yasi_hurricane_j2_wind.png download>Jason-2Credits Cnes/CLS Ssalto/Duacs. |
<link fileadmin images news mod_actus aus_ja2_iph_2ptp070_094_p175.png download> |
|---|
Altimetry-derived heights over an Australian river (click <link fileadmin images news mod_actus aus_ge_j2_p175.jpg download>here to see enlarged map of the area), every ten days between May 2010 and January 2011 (Jason-2 data processed for hydrology applications). At each date, the altimeter makes several measurements along the track (pass 175) either on land or on river. These measurements were done under pass 175 from cycle 070 (May-June 2010) to cycle 094 (January 2011) and are provided by Pistach project (IGDR products with a specific treatment adapted to continental waters). Credits CLS/Cnes. |
Further information:
- Applications: <link internal-link>ENSO, <link internal-link>Hydrology, <link internal-link>Hurricane, <link internal-link>Winds and waves
- <link internal-link>El Niño index
- Image of the month related to this topic January 2011: <link internal-link>La Niña's in turn to wreak havoc
Image of the month 
