On June 17, 2018, northern Michigan and parts of Wisconsin received torrential rains. The flooding caused historical property damage and brought river discharge levels well above their averages, sending sediment runoff into Lake Superior.
This image, taken on June 19, 2018, by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station, shows sediment runoff into Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota. The Nemadji River regularly unloads red clay sediment into the Lake Superior Harbor, but the discharge was intensified during the flooding event and discolored waters.
References & Resources
Astronaut photograph ISS056-E-21591 was acquired on June 19, 2018, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using an 800 millimeter lens and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 56 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Kasha Patel.
