[NASA] Dry-Season Floods Drench Northern Colombia

[SpaceMan 0]

Earth Observatory

1. This is the hidden content, please

   • Sign In
   • or
   • Sign Up
2. This is the hidden content, please

   • Sign In
   • or
   • Sign Up
3. Dry-Season Floods Drench…

• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• Topics
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
• More Content
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
• About
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
  • This is the hidden content, please

    • Sign In
    • or
    • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up

 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

January 23

February 9

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

NASA Earth Observatory

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

NASA Earth Observatory

January 23February 9

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

NASA Earth Observatory

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

NASA Earth Observatory

January 23

February 9

CurtainToggle2-Up

February is one of the driest months of the year in northern Colombia’s Córdoba department, a major farming and cattle region. It’s the time of year when farmers normally prepare fields for planting and ranchers move livestock to graze in drying floodplains. In 2026, however, unusually heavy rains in early February upended seasonal rhythms and submerged much of the department under floodwaters.

The

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(Operational Land Imager) on

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

captured this

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

image (bands

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

) of flooding along the Sinú River on February 9, 2026 (right). Dark floodwaters cover farmland, pastureland, and several communities, particularly to the west of the river. To the east, water levels at a complex of wetlands are

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Lorica, a city of roughly 90,000 people, is visible in the upper part of the image. The OLI image on the left shows the same area on January 23, before floodwaters arrived.

After an already

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, rainfall intensified in early February when an unusual cold front in the Caribbean pushed south on February 1 and 2, forcing moisture-laden air into northern Colombia and over the Andes. This led to several days of intense downpours in Córdoba, with some areas receiving more than 4 to 7 centimeters (2 to 3 inches) of rain per day, according to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of the event.

NASA’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement) estimated rain rates of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

near Lorica on February 1, the day of the heaviest rains. In the following weeks, storms continued to drench the region. On

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, imagery from NASA’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

indicated that flooding remained widespread.

The floods have been far-reaching and destructive. More than

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of Córdoba flooded, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Preliminary estimates

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

suggest that thousands of homes were destroyed, more than 11,000 families displaced, and more than 150,000 hectares of farmland inundated.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Story by Adam Voiland.

Downloads

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

January 23, 2026

JPEG (790.78 KB)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

February 9, 2026

JPEG (888.42 KB)

References & Resources

• The City Paper Bogotá (2026, February 10)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.
• ClimaMeter (2026, February)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.
• Colombia Reports (2026, February 12)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.
• El País (2026, February 10)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  Accessed February 25, 2026.
• IDEAM (2026)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.
• IDEAM (2026, February 3)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.
• International Charter Space & Major Disasters (2026)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.  
• ReliefWeb (2026, February 25)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.
• Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (2026, February 15)
  This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
  . Accessed February 25, 2026.

You may also be interested in:

Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

3 min read

Heavy rains and flooding across the country since June 2025 have displaced millions of people, devastated infrastructure, and submerged farmland.

Article

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

2 min read

Weeks of intense rain overwhelmed rivers and reservoirs, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Article

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

3 min read

A rare tropical cyclone dropped torrential rains on the Indonesian island, fueling extensive and destructive floods.

Article

1

2

3

4
Next

Keep Exploring

Discover More from NASA Earth Science

Subscribe to Earth Observatory Newsletters

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Earth Observatory Image of the Day

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Explore Earth Science

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Earth Science Data

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up