For those of you following the rise (and hopefully rapid fall) of the Red River on the North Dakota-Minnesota border, the Fargo Forum has this story about how the federal government is using technology to do its part.
The Forum’s Brittany Lawonn reports that for the first time unmanned Predator drones are being used to monitor rising flood waters. The drones, which are on loan from Customs and Border Protection, provide real-time images to first responders and weather experts, helping them predict changes in the river. Here is an excerpt from the piece:
Greg Gust, a warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said the confidence with which forecasters can say the river has crested stems from images obtained by Predator drones flying over the river valley Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
‘Our river forecasters are not only able to see in real time the aerial extent of the water, but the flows going over land and all these breakouts, and actually measure that from those flights, which means getting an incredible handle on all that water we didn’t know where it was,’ Gust said.
Full disclosure, Lawonn is a friend and fellow Boston University alumna.
