Dates of Images:

Post-Event: January 26, 2026

Pre-Event: December 2025 (composite)

Please Note: Images with majority cloud cover are not shown in the Map Viewer, but are available in the service.

Summary:

These Black Marble Day-Night Band (BRDF-Corrected) images were created by the NASA Black Marble Science team. The images are corrected for atmospheric, terrain, lunar BRDF, and straylight effects, and directly measures light intensity on the ground in units of nanowatts/(steradian centimeter squared). The images are scaled from 0 - 30. Additional cloud cover layers are included to indicate where clouds are present. The baseline image is from September 2025, generated from all daily atmospheric and lunar-corrected data from that month. There is a layer to display where clouds are present. This comparison between the images is meant as a visual assessment of outage impacts to aid various partners who are working to deliver emergency aids to local communities. Power outage maps like these help disaster response efforts in the short-term as well as long-term monitoring during the crucial stages of disaster recovery.

Suggested Use:

NASA's Black Marble Nighttime Light product suite is a state-of-the-art daily global collection of standard products for monitoring nighttime lights (NTL). Utilizing the Visible Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) aboard the Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites.

The image is in inferno color scale. Yellow represents presence of more light; dark blue less lights.

Observations may be obscured by total or partial cloud cover. Other factors such as snow reflectance, moon phase, wildfires, and wildfire smoke may distort light radiance and require further analysis when assessing power outages. Grey represents cloud cover.

Satellite/Sensor:

Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Platform (SNPP), NOAA-20, and NOAA-21

Resolution:

500 meters

Credits:

NASA Black Marble Science team

Please cite the following two references when using this data:

Román MO, Stokes EC, Shrestha R, Wang Z, Schultz L, Carlo EA, Sun Q, Bell J, Molthan A, Kalb V, Ji C. Satellite-based assessment of electricity restoration efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. PloS one. 2019 Jun 28;14(6):e0218883.

Román MO, Wang Z, Sun Q, Kalb V, Miller SD, Molthan A, Schultz L, Bell J, Stokes EC, Pandey B, Seto KC. NASA's Black Marble nighttime lights product suite. Remote Sensing of Environment. 2018 Jun 1;210:113-43.

Point of Contact:

Ranjay Shrestha

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

E-mail: ranjay.m.shrestha@nasa.gov

Additional Links:

NASA’s Black Marble Product Suite

Román, M.O. et al. (2019) Satellite-based assessment of electricity restoration efforts in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. PLoS One, 14 (6).

Román, M.O. et al. (2018) NASA’s Black Marble nighttime lights product suite. Remote Sensing of Environment. 210, 113–143.

WMS Endpoint:

Cloud Masks: https://gis.earthdata.nasa.gov/gis05/services/DISASTERS_202510_HURRICANE_MELISSA/BlackMarble_BRDF_CLOUD/ImageServer/WMSServer

BRDF: https://gis.earthdata.nasa.gov/gis05/services/DISASTERS_202510_HURRICANE_MELISSA/BlackMarble_BRDF/ImageServer/