Burlington, Iowa and the Mississippi River Today’s Image of the Day comes thanks to the NASA Earth Observatory and features a look at Burlington, Iowa along the Mississippi River.
The photo was taken by an astronaut on board the International Space Station.
Burlington sits atop high bluffs along the Mississippi, which narrows as the river approaches the city.
Additionally, a dam helps slow the flow of the river, which allows for two bridges to connect both sides.
When major flooding occurs, the Mississippi spills its water into the low floodplain. The most severe flood ever recorded in the area happened in June 2008, which caused the water level to rise 25.73 feet.The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,320 miles (3,730 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi’s watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km2), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer
Source: NASA Earth Observatory
