Florida Nighttime Lights Before and After Hurricane Ian

  • Released Friday, June 16th, 2023
  • Updated Wednesday, June 28th, 2023 at 10:31PM
  • ID: 5058

Difference in nighttime light energy levels and coverage before and after Hurricane Ian. The nighttime light data were generated from NASA’s Black Marble and depicts the levels on August 30th, 2022 (before Hurricane Ian) and on September 30th, 2022 (after Hurricane Ian).

Hurricane Ian was a powerful Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that made landfall in southwestern Florida on September 28, 2022. Ian brought catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding that resulted in causalities, structural damage, and power outages. Between September 28 and October 1, an estimated total of 4.45 million customers lost power in the U.S. The state of Florida experienced the most power outages with an estimated total of 3.28 million customers without power.

The VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite captures nighttime light emissions and reflections, and scientists worked with the imagery to show what these power outages looked like. The maps above and below illustrate the processed VIIRS data in a few cities hit hardest by Hurricane Ian.

Animation of the difference in nighttime light before and after Hurricane Ian at 7680 x 2160 resolution.

Still map of nighttime lights before Hurricane Ian (August 30, 2022).

Still map of nighttime lights before Hurricane Ian (August 30, 2022).

Still map of nighttime lights after Hurricane Ian (September 30, 2022).

Still map of nighttime lights after Hurricane Ian (September 30, 2022).

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.