<p>Unusually heavy and persistent rain doused several Middle Eastern countries in late March and early April 2019. At the same time, mountains were beginning to lose their snow cover to melting. Though the end of winter and start of spring have brought seasonal floods here since ancient times, this spring has been severe in some areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan.
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The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this false-color images on March 28, 2019. The combination of near-infrared and visible light (MODIS bands 7-2-1) makes it easier to see rivers out of their banks and water spread across flood plains and salt pans.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.
2019-03-28
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144785/floods-ravage-iran-and-iraq">https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144785/floods-ravage-iran-and-iraq</a>