Tornado Scars Seen from Space

Credit: NASA/Goddard, Posted on: Wednesday, 13 June 2007, 06:38 CDT Download full size image

A series of tornadoes ripped across central and northeast Wisconsin on the evening of June 7, 2007, leaving a path of destruction visible from space.

This image of the track of one of those tornadoes was captured on June 9, 2007, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. The tornado track is the diagonal line running through the dark green, forested area, just left of the center of the image.

The path torn through this densely wooded area stands out quite clearly in the satellite image, as tens of thousands of trees were leveled by the devastating funnel cloud.

One of the tornadoes to strike the area was given an F-3 rating by the National Weather Service, classifying it as a "strong" tornado that causes severe damage and has wind speeds between 158 and 206 miles per hour.

More Images

Mars
Microscope Image of a Martian Soil Surface Sample.This is the closest view of the material underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. ...

---

Universe
Youthful Wrinkles.During a distant flyby encounter with Enceladus, Cassini imaged the moon's wrinkled leading hemisphe...

---