The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, created this Flood Proxy Map depicting areas of the Carolinas that are likely flooded as a result of Hurricane Florence, shown by light blue pixels. The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The images were taken before (September 09, 2018) and 36 hours after the hurricane's landfall (September 15, 2018 18:57 PM local time).

The map covers an area of 53 miles x 152 miles (85 km x 245 km), indicated with the big red polygon. Each pixel measures about 33 yards x 33 yards (30 m x 30 m). Media reports provided anecdotal preliminary validation. This flood proxy map should be used as guidance to identify areas that are likely flooded and may be less reliable over urban and vegetated areas.

Sentinel-1 data were accessed through the Copernicus Open Access Hub. The image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA and analyzed by the NASA-JPL/Caltech ARIA team. This research was carried out at JPL funded by NASA.

For more information about ARIA, visit http://aria.jpl.nasa.gov.