Mystery on satellite image - Eastern Arkansas

Arkansas
Latest 4/10/06 USDA information shows the following for Arkansas:
0 percent cotton planted
15 percent rice planted
16 percent sorghum planted

2005 data shows:
240,000 acres planted for corn
910,000 acres planted for cotton
1,561,000 acres planted for rice
66,000 acres planted for sorghum
3,030,000 acres planted for soybeana
220,000 acres planted for wheat

Mike
 
I couldn't imagine cotton being that white all of the sudden and is it cotton season anyway right now? If that is cotton then that would be the first time that I've heard of such a thing and apparently quite a few others haven't heard of that before either...
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All I know is I saw alot of it in sw MO, se KS over a month ago. It was making the whole field quite white. Temps have been well above normal all winter so I figure it's possible it is starting early(given this is even early, I don't know).

Arkansas
Latest 4/10/06 USDA information shows the following for Arkansas:
0 percent cotton planted[/b]
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Well that would be odd for places in KS/MO to have planted and started to grow cotton and no one in AR.

I ain't saying it IS cotton, just wondered if it was a possibility. Surely we have a member from the area, lol.
 
I actaully saw this a few years ago and called the Memphis NWS office up on a slow day. They told me it was an annual Spring time event when some sort of tree (the name escapes me now) blossoms.

Aaron
 
Was that area flooded in the great MS River floods.....when the heck was that...late 80's? Early 90's? I'm thinking that maybe there is some kind of vegetation that now grows there since the floods deposited their....deposits.

??

You know, sorta how like the vegetation will change in an area after a fire, too.

Beats me.

Rita also sorta hit that area, too, but I doubt it has anything to do with that.

Bob

*edit* Oops, too bad Aaron didn't get his answer posted before I started on mine. I think he's got it nailed.
 
I would say it's more likely a difference in soil types? Sandy/silty soil deposits in the flood plain would be more visible this time of year since crops haven't grown up yet. I've looked at a lot of satellite images where the different deposits were very visible. They would also absorb a lot of heat since they are exposed to direct sunlight (hence the difference in infrared images). They might not have the crops planted, but they probably have the fields turned over and ready for planting.

Oops, looks like Aaron had the answer.
 
Wow those must be some intense blossoms that they have down there. If somebody figures out what type of tree it is be sure to post it and let us know, I would be interested to see if this happens anywhere else with that type of tree or another one of similar nature.
 
I grew up in that area ... chased a few great storms there (wish I had been back home on April 2 for the NE Ark-Mo Bootheel-NW Tenn supercell ... I coulda been the only chaser on it knowing the roads by heart ... I'll be 4 weeks too late visiting my parents in Jonesboro ... drat) ... whatever it is, it's related to the lowlands there, because I can make out the outline of Crowley's Ridge, a narrow line of hills, through the middle of it ... it's not cotton because that crop has been steadily reducing in acreage through the years and is mostly confined to areas very close to the Miss. River now ... I doubt it's something to do with a certain kind of tree because most of that land is cleared, so woods acreage is small ... I would guess it had something to do with rice fields and the early season irrigation of them ... but I really don't have a definitive answer
 
Surely we have someone on ST that lives in that area that can just go down there and check it out for us.
 
I agree with Kevin that it might be the flooded rice fields since it should be around seeding time.

I'll take a trip over there tomorrow and check it out. I need to get out shoot some video and photos for a project I'm working on anyway. I'll report back what I find.

If you guys don't hear from me again then I was probably abducted by aliens. This "fog" could be emissions from alien spacecrafts heading to Eureka Springs this weekend for the 18th Annual Ozark UFO Conference...
 
If those are flowers then I bet the view is amazing there. I wouldnt mind seein that mysef in person. Maybe someone can call the forecast office there and find out for sure.
 
This sure looks agricultural related. I believe we are looking at bare land probably being cultivated for the upcoming soybean crop. Doing a little research, soybean is a primary crop in this area, and the planting season is coming up... so it would make sense that we would be remotely sensing bare farmland probably. I obviously don't know much about the soil type in this area, but it certainly looks light-colored based on visible imagery. IR imagery shows this area 7 to 10 degC higher in the early afternoon than surrounding areas which is interesting. I imagine it is dry around there with a lot of direct insolation being absorbed by the soil with a decent amount of sensible heat flux. (i.e. not much water for latent heat fluxes which would help keep soil temps down). There's no other real way to explain why the ground there is 10C higher than everywhere else. Everything else down there is beginning to green-up... except these farmlands being cultivated?

Mike U
 
I'll lean towards the soil/ag explanations... there would have to be bazillons of blossoms... although you would hope the NWS mets would have a clue?

Aaron
 
I feel silly for posting this, but could it be pollen? Or some other tree reproductive related phenomena?
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I actaully saw this a few years ago and called the Memphis NWS office up on a slow day. They told me it was an annual Spring time event when some sort of tree (the name escapes me now) blossoms.
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*howls like a wookie*

It was just a shot in the dark, but it seemed like a plausible idea.
 
Well here's an intrinsic questions to the whole thing,

Was it moving on a loop? I mean - was it weather-related in the airmass or was it stationary and ground-related??

If it was moving and weather-related - with Arkansas' topographical features I'd say it's a sure-fire bet it was something related to topographic influences on moisture advection. Would it stand to reason that moisture advection has an easier time of it over extrememly flat land as opposed to hilly land? Eastern Arkansas is another pocket of Plains, you know.

Maybe this was what gave us April 2nd! :rolleyes:

BTW just to debunk the tree/blossom theory ( :blink: ) - there are less trees out there than there are in central Oklahoma! :lol:

K.
 
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