Mapping Water: California freshwater infogram

The volume of every major body of freshwater in California. http://flip.it/51sYyd

Cool Geo-Pic - Fires in Los Angeles County

This Cool Geo-Pic comes again from NASA's Earth Observatory. I particularly liked how the image reveals the difficult canyon terrain that challenged fire fighting efforts.

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:

" ... Two weeks after an arsonist ignited the drought-dry forest north of Los Angeles, the Station fire had become the ninth largest fire in California since 1933...."

" .... On the morning of September 8, 2009, the fire had burned more than 250 square miles (about 650 square kilometers) of land, according to the Station Fire Incident Report from September 8.... "

" ....This image, captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite on September 6, shows the extent of the burned area. ...."

" .... The burned area covers much of the San Gabriel Mountains, edging down into residential areas northwest of Pasadena .... The image also illustrates why fighting the Station fire has been so difficult. The fire burned over steep mountains riddled with canyons. The rugged landscape looks wrinkled, particularly in the burned area where plants no longer soften the ridgelines and canyons .... "

Full Article - Click Here

References / Credits:

Bloomekatz, A.B. (2009, September 6). Station fire, among state’s top 10, moves toward Littlerock, Juniper Hills. Los Angeles Times. Accessed September 8, 2009.

InciWeb. (2009, September 8). Station Fire. Accessed September 8, 2009.

Mount Wilson Observatory. Accessed September 8, 2009.

More images of this event in Natural Hazards

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

Instrument:
Terra - ASTER

California Stimulus: Interactive Mapping of Spend

Taken from the California Economic Recovery Portal, a brilliant interactive display of stimulus spend throughout the state of California. My image collage highlights Orange County.

Full Credits to Stamen.com and Flowing Data for bringing this to "life & attention". MapTiles by CloudMade and data CC by SA OpenStreetMap.org