Hurricane Melissa made landfall on Jamaica on October 28, 2025, as a category 5 storm, causing power outages across the island which are still ongoing two and a half weeks later. The nighttime image comparison is from the the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the joint NASA/NOAA NOAA-21 platform and compares October 19 (left "A" side) to November 13 (right "B" side), where many of the smaller inland areas are still without power.
The Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite (Day/Night Band) is a false-color composite using the VIIRS at-sensor radiance and the brightness temperatures from the M15 band. Data are provided by NASA's VJ146A1 product using NOAA-21 platform observations.
Originally designed by the U.S. Naval Research Lab and incorporated into NASA research and applications efforts, the Black Marble false-color scheme shows nighttime city lights in shades of yellow with infrared, nighttime cloud presence in shades of blue. During bright moonlight conditions, moonlight reflected from cloud tops and the land surface may also provide a yellow hue to these features. Comparisons of cloud-free conditions before and after a period of significant change, such as new city growth, disasters, fires, or other factors, may exhibit a change in emitted light (yellows) from those features over time.
Visit Worldview to visualize near real-time imagery from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project; find more imagery in our Worldview weekly image archive.
