Destruction from Hurricane Irma Viewed from Above

The images coming in from the damage Hurricane Irma caused have just been incredible.  While we've seen pictures of homes, cities and islands destroyed, the following pictures give a different perspective of the widespread damage Irma caused from space.

The two images on the left are from the Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite.  The top image is a view of the Caribbean on August 25th - notice all the green on each island.  The second image is from Sunday, September 10th.  The biggest difference you probably notice is the change in landscape, with the islands appearing more brown.  The likely reason for this is due to just how strong Hurricane Irma's winds were, tearing through the tropical vegetation on the islands allowing more


 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
 NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites

bare ground to be visible.  Hurricane Irma passed through the northernmost Virgin Islands as a Category 5 hurricane with winds over 180 mph.  One of the hardest hit islands, Barbuda, shows the destruction very well.