South American Droughts
In this whole-Earth Overview captured yesterday, wildfire smoke can be seen across much of central South America. Many countries — including Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil — are experiencing their worst droughts in decades, having received no significant rainfall for months. Not only have the droughts fueled several wildfires, they also have reduced water levels in many rivers of the Amazon basin to record lows, crippling hydroelectric plants and forcing some regions to schedule blackouts to conserve power.
Also visible along the day/night terminator line is Tropical Storm John approaching Mexico’s Pacific Coast. How can we see both of these events at once? In addition to standard RGB imagery captured during the day, the GOES-19 satellite that captured this image can detect faint light sources in the night sky using low-light sensors.