Scientist helps improve flood watch in Alaska

April 29, 2016

Photo by Jessica Cherry. Jessica Cherry took this aerial photo of the ice jam on the Yukon River on Wednesday morning, April 27. Her imagery like this one is provided to the National Weather Service, communities and news outlets on the same day of collection.

University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist and commercial pilot Jessica Cherry has been busy flying over Alaska rivers, capturing images of their conditions to help forecast a risk of flooding.

Cherry, a researcher at UAF's International Arctic Research Center, takes high definition photos of the rivers with a camera on a small Cessna aircraft. She merges the photos using 3-D image-processing software.

Cherry’s images enhance the National Weather Service’s River Watch Program, which monitors ice breakup conditions throughout Alaska to assess flood threats and hazards.

This year, Cherry and UAF’s Geographic Information Network of Alaska hosted a visiting scientist, Sanmei Li from George Mason University, during the airborne campaign. Li gave a talk at UAF on her satellite-based flooding product, produced at GINA and used by NWS.

Li also surveyed the ice jam at Eagle on the ground and by air. The goal is to help develop more accurate products with this firsthand knowledge and the airborne dataset that Cherry has collected.

Photo by Kathy Lynch. Project team (left to right) Sanmei Li, Jessica Cherry and Craig Kenmonth of AlphaAero pose in front of a Cessna.

In addition, Cherry traveled to Russia this past winter with NWS staff and a larger team organized by UAF Graduate School Dean John Eichelberger and IARC graduate student Katia Kontar to study the ice jam flood phenomenon in both Siberia and Alaska. This led to further discussions with the Tanana Chiefs Conference in Interior Alaska about how to provide better information to communities during breakup.

“Seeing this transition from research and cutting-edge technology to operations and improved decision-making could not be more exciting,” Cherry said.

CONTACT: Jessica Cherry, 907-474-5730, Jessica.Cherry@alaska.edu.