Images recorded by the Sentinela-2 satellite of the European program Copernicus show the island of Madeira on a spring day “totally free of clouds”.
From forest fires to drought-stricken territories, we’ve become accustomed to seeing stunning images from European satellites whenever there’s an extreme weather episode. This time, science communicator Iban Ameztoy used records from the Sentinela-2 satellite to tell a different story about “ magical places in Portugal ” .
“ Want a spectacular 360-degree flight over an incredible place? Fasten your virtual seat belts and let’s head towards Madeira, on the Atlantic Ocean ” , wrote Ameztoy on the social network Twitter. The images were recorded by the Copernicus Sentinela-2 satellite, the European Earth observation program, on March 29 this year. And they show an island that is mainly green, surrounded by blue, on an unbelievably clear day.
“ It is not very easy, nor common, to obtain a completely cloud-free image in this area. As far as 2023 is concerned, this is the only totally clear image of the entire island obtained by the Sentinela-2 satellite ” , explained to PÚBLICO Iban Ameztoy , who works in the science communication service of the Joint Research Center (Joint Research Centre, in English), the scientific research center of the European Commission. Ameztoy is responsible for processing the images.
About two months after the recording of these images, Madeira would be hit by rain. The south coast and the mountainous regions of the island were under red warning in the first week of June, due to heavy and persistent rain caused by the Óscar depression . The Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA) recorded , on that occasion, a new absolute precipitation extreme in Portugal: 497.5 millimeters, with the previous maximum being 346.8 millimeters, verified on April 8, 2008.