Floods in Northwestern Australia

Floods in Northwestern Australia. Tropical Cyclone Monty brought heavy rain to drought-stricken regions of Western Australia. While welcome, the rain pushed the Fortescue River over its banks, cutting off a few small communities and isolated homesteads in the rural area. These false-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images show the Fortescue River on February 24, 2004, before Monty came ashore, and on March 3, just after the cyclone moved across the area. Blue-green streaks in the image taken on March 3 show where water covers the land. The Fortescue River appears particularly flooded near the coast, where a large fan shape has replaced the slender line water running into the Indian Ocean.
The high-resolution images provided above are at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel. Floods in Northwestern Australia has seen floods throughout the area off the coast line. Also the cyclone has brought heavy rain and major drought to the area. The North West, North West Coast, North Western Australia and North West Australia, are usually informal names for the northern regions of the State of Western Australia. However, some conceptions of “North West Australia” have included adjoining parts of the Northern Territory (NT) – or even the entire NT (see below).
Major offshore islands include Barrow Island, Monte Bello Islands and the Dampier Archipelago.
Apart from land areas, the term “North West” is also used for seabed oil and gas fields of the North West Shelf.

Credit: Images courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC (March 3) and the EOS Data Pool (February 24).