Nighttime-lights imagery shows substantial dimming west of Isaias's eye after Destin landfall
NASA's Black Marble HD imagery shows nighttime lights falling west of Isaias's eye after the storm came ashore near Destin with 105 mph winds. Lights are a proxy for electric service, so the images suggest where power was disrupted.
The Scientist · Science desk
Bar chart of preliminary peak wind gusts reported by the National Weather Service: 117 mph at Oriole Beach and 102 mph at Pensacola City Hall.
Preliminary peak wind gust, per the National Weather Service
| Item | Value | Claim |
|---|---|---|
| Oriole Beach | 117 mph | 2 |
| Pensacola City Hall | 102 mph | 2 |
What happened
- The National Weather Service put gusts above 100 mph along a corridor west of the center, with preliminary peaks of 117 mph at Oriole Beach and 102 mph at Pensacola City Hall.
- Heavy rain and flash flooding hit parts of the Southeast, among them Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The storm's winds also toppled trees and downed power lines.
- At finer scale, lights fell sharply around parts of Pensacola and along the U.S. Route 98 corridor toward Destin, which NASA says suggests widespread power disruptions.
- By October 12 lights had begun to return to some affected areas, and by October 14 the patterns looked similar to pre-storm conditions.
Why it matters
- What's now possible capability Black Marble HD lets analysts see lights fall along a single corridor such as Route 98, a scale at which the standard Worldview imagery gives only a broad picture of impacts.
- What it limits constraint NASA treats the data as a complement to ground-based outage reports, so sizing the event in customers or hours still depends on utility and field data.
- Who has to decide decision Shrestha says tracking where recovery is progressing and where disruptions persist can help responders prioritize resources and judge restoration efforts, a use that depends on reading dim areas correctly.
The gust corridor and the dimmed area overlap, but they differ in size. The National Weather Service put gusts above 100 mph along a corridor west of the center, and the dimming covered a broader area west of the eye, with the two overlapping [2][3]. NASA reports the overlap without testing whether the stronger gusts produced the deeper dimming.
The imagery is a before-and-after pair. The "before" is a composite of August 2026 data standing in for typical conditions. The "after" is a single view from October 11, once most of the clouds had cleared [8]. Black Marble HD draws on the day-night band of the VIIRS instrument on the NOAA-20 satellite [9]. The team corrected for changes in the landscape, the atmosphere and the phase of the Moon, and filtered out stray light that does not come from electric lights [10].
Those steps remove several sources of false dimming. In our view the pair is still a good map of where lights fell and a weak guide to how many customers were affected. The October 11 view also comes two days after the evening landfall on October 9 [16][1], so it records what was still dark two days on.
Some places stayed lit. Ranjay Shrestha of NASA's Black Marble science team pointed to Pensacola International Airport, Pensacola Christian College and parts of downtown Pensacola [6]. "These patterns could reflect backup power systems, differences in electrical infrastructure, or areas that maintained electricity during the storm, although the imagery alone cannot confirm the underlying reasons," he said [7].
The imagery does not show how many customers lost power or for how long.
The NASA Disasters Program is working with FEMA and the USGS Coastal Storms Team to support the Alabama Red Cross and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. It says it will post maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available [15].
What to watch
- New maps and data products from the NASA Disasters Program on its open-access portal, which would add images beyond October 11, 12 and 14.
- Utility outage figures for the Pensacola and Route 98 area, which would test whether the dimmed area matches the customers who lost power.
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- [1]
Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, on the evening of October 9 as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles (170 kilometers) per hour.
- [2]
According to the National Weather Service, gusts topped 100 miles per hour along a corridor west of the storm's center, with preliminary reports showing a 117-mile-per-hour gust in Oriole Beach and a 102-mile-per-hour gust at Pensacola City Hall.
- [3]
The areas of high winds overlapped a broader area west of the storm's eye where satellite images showed substantial decreases in nighttime lights.
- [4]
The storm brought heavy rain and flash flooding to parts of the Southeast, including Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, and winds that toppled trees and downed power lines, leaving many people in the dark.
- [5]
At finer scales, the images reveal lights decreasing sharply around parts of Pensacola, Florida, and along the U.S. Route 98 corridor toward Destin, suggesting widespread power disruptions.
- [6]
Ranjay Shrestha pointed out pockets where lights persisted, including Pensacola International Airport, Pensacola Christian College, and parts of downtown Pensacola.
- [7]
"These patterns could reflect backup power systems, differences in electrical infrastructure, or areas that maintained electricity during the storm, although the imagery alone cannot confirm the underlying reasons," Shrestha said.
- [8]
The left image is a composite of August 2026 data representing typical conditions, and the right image shows lights on October 11, after most of the storm's clouds had cleared.
- [9]
The data come from the Black Marble HD product, provided by Ranjay Shrestha of NASA's Black Marble science team, which uses data from the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite, whose day-night band detects light emitted and reflected at night.
- [10]
The team processed the data to account for changes in the landscape, the atmosphere, and phase of the Moon, and to filter out stray light that does not come from electric lights. Dark gray, hash-marked areas show where clouds prevented VIIRS from collecting data.
- [11]
A comparison of the October 11 view with one from October 12 shows lights had begun to return to some affected areas; by October 14, lighting patterns looked similar to pre-storm conditions.
- [12]
Black Marble data complement ground-based outage reports rather than replace them, offering a more comprehensive view of disasters' impacts and recovery.
- [13]
"Standard Black Marble nighttime lights imagery, available through NASA Worldview, provides a broad picture of the storm's immediate impacts," Shrestha said. "Black Marble HD takes this a step further by allowing us to visualize these changes at a much finer spatial scale."
- [14]
"Understanding where recovery is progressing and where disruptions persist can help emergency responders and decision makers identify areas that may require additional attention, prioritize resources, and assess the effectiveness of restoration efforts," Shrestha said.
- [15]
The NASA Disasters Program, in coordination with FEMA and the USGS Coastal Storms Team, is supporting the Alabama Red Cross and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency's response to Hurricane Isaias, and will post maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.
- [16]
The October 11 post-storm view is two days after the October 9 evening landfall.
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Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- nasa.govIsaias Dims the Gulf Coast
1 article · October 15, 2026
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