Satellite before and after

Hurricane Harvey 2017: floods across the Texas coastal plain

Hurricane Harvey stalled over south-east Texas in late August 2017 and dropped record-setting rain, flooding the coast and the Houston metropolitan area.

Houston and the Texas coast around Galveston Bay, United States · Late August 2017 · Hurricane / Cyclone / Typhoon · United States

Compare the imagery

Drag the divider, or focus it and use the arrow keys. Left of the divider is 18 Aug 2017, right is 31 Aug 2017, 13 days apart.

The interactive comparison needs JavaScript. Both images are shown below.

In this false-colour view water is dark blue to black, vegetation is bright green, bare ground is tan, freshly burned land is red-brown and cloud is cyan.

The two images

Satellite image of Houston and the Texas coast around Galveston Bay, United States on 18 Aug 2017, before the event, in false colour (MODIS bands 7-2-1).
Before: Terra, 18 Aug 2017 · Open in NASA Worldview · original from GIBS
Satellite image of Houston and the Texas coast around Galveston Bay, United States on 31 Aug 2017, after the event, in false colour (MODIS bands 7-2-1).
After: Terra, 31 Aug 2017 · Open in NASA Worldview · original from GIBS

What the images show

On 18 August the coastal plain is green, dotted with small cloud. On 31 August wide dark bands of floodwater follow the rivers that cross the plain west and south-west of Houston, and water pours into Galveston Bay.

About the event

  • NASA Earth Observatory reported 51.88 inches (1,318 mm) of rain at Cedar Bayou, Texas — the highest rainfall total for any storm in recorded US history.
  • Its false-colour MODIS image of the same day, 31 August 2017, shows the flooding along the coast and around Houston.

Limits of this comparison

Both images are from the same satellite and layer. Small scattered cloud covers much of the 18 August image. Flooding inside the city itself is mostly too fine to see at 250 metres.

Each image is one satellite pass at about 250 metres a pixel. It shows where water or burned land is visible from space on that day; it does not measure damage, and cloud or haze can hide what is underneath.

Dates were chosen by checking the imagery on both satellites for several days either side and keeping the clearest pass. Both use the same layer, MODIS Corrected Reflectance, bands 7-2-1.

Sources

We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Comparison slider: leaflet-side-by-side (MIT licence). Case last updated 13 Sep 2026.

Questions

What does the satellite image of Houston and the Texas coast around Galveston Bay, United States show?

On 18 August the coastal plain is green, dotted with small cloud. On 31 August wide dark bands of floodwater follow the rivers that cross the plain west and south-west of Houston, and water pours into Galveston Bay.

When were the two satellite images taken?

The before-image was taken by Terra, 18 Aug 2017 and the after-image by Terra, 31 Aug 2017, 13 days apart.

What can this before-and-after comparison not show?

Both images are from the same satellite and layer. Small scattered cloud covers much of the 18 August image. Flooding inside the city itself is mostly too fine to see at 250 metres. Each image is one satellite pass at about 250 metres a pixel. It shows where water or burned land is visible from space on that day; it does not measure damage, and cloud or haze can hide what is underneath.

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