Parts of Southern California have seen record rainfall in the past week after two atmospheric rivers pelted the region.
As the clouds began to lift, new projections from a modeling company were providing a visual representation of the scale of the flooding.
The projections, from Floodbase, show dramatic differences in accumulated water between late January and this week.
Below is greater Los Angeles on Jan. 28 (left) and Feb. 6 (right). On Jan. 28, much of the water is dark blue, indicating permanent water.
On Feb. 6, light blue floodwater surrounds waterways like the L.A. River and can be seen accumulating at the base of the Santa Monica and Verdugo mountains.
Public satellites haven’t yet flown over the areas hit by the storm, and private satellites have only targeted a few areas, said Floodbase co-founder Bessie Schwarz.
The Floodbase data is “simulating what the satellites would have seen,” she said.
Floodbase uses an AI model trained on decades of satellite images, along with physical models from hydrologic, land surface and hydraulic data to predict what a satellite would see through the clouds.