Of stars and stripes: NASA satellites used to predict zebra migrations One of the world's longest migrations of zebras occurs in the African nation of Botswana, but predicting when and where zebras will move has not been possible until now. Using NASA rain and vegetation data, researchers can track when and where arid lands begin to green, and for the first time anticipate if zebras will make the trek or, if the animals find poor conditions en route, understand why they will turn back. Covering an area of approximately 8,500 square miles (22,000 square kilometers), Botswana’s Okavango Delta is...

By Lisa-Natalie Anjozian , NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Original www.nasa.gov Press Release (published 11/27/12) A NASA study using TRMM satellite data revealed that the year 2010 was a particularly bad year for landslides around the world. Around midnight on August 8, 2010, a violent surge of loosened earth roared down mountain slopes and slammed into quietly sleeping neighborhoods in Zhouqu County in Gansu, China. The catastrophic mudslides—the deadliest in decades according to state media—buried some areas under as much as 23 feet (7 meters) of suffocating sludge. 1,765 people died...

By Ellen Gray , NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Original www.nasa.gov Press Release (published 6/7/12) NASA and Nature Conservancy Agreement Supports [no-glossary]Precipitation[/no-glossary] and Migratory Bird Research The NASA NPOL radar is a research grade S-band, scanning dual-polarimetric radar. It underwent a complete antenna system upgrade in 2010 and is one of two fully transportable research-grade S-band systems in the world. It is used to make accurate volumetric measurements of precipitation including rainfall rate, particle size distributions, water contents and precipitation type...

UPDATE: Monday, August 29th, 2011 Irene Drenches Northeastern United States UPDATE: Friday, August 26th, 2011 Irene Passes Through the Bahamas, Heads Towards Cape Hatterus Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 After becoming a small hurricane while passing over Puerto Rico, Irene re-emerged over the warm, open waters of the western Atlantic northwest of the Dominican Republic on the morning of August 22nd. The storm quickly showed signs of intensifying as deep convective towers arose near the center of Irene, releasing heat into the core of the system. In response, Irene's central pressure fell and...