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Apr 12

NEW: NPR has decided it will no longer participate on Twitter due to inaccurate labelling of our main account. Twitter doesn't make or break anything we do as an organization, and so there's not much benefit for staying. Full statement from CEO John Lansing below.

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The latest image from

@planet

taken today at 11AM local time shows the reservoir really starting to near deadpool on its northern end.

The Kakhovka Reservoir in Ukraine is really starting to empty out. This Imagery from

@planet

is the latest I've seen that shows the sediments re-emerging on the reservoirs bottom. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant can be seen on the lower right. It's cooling pond is still full.

14h

Bottom line, this is a truly unprecedented situation for Southern Ukraine with huge implications for the region's drinking water, agriculture, and of course, the nuclear plant.

GIF

We don't really have good data on the water level at the moment. Earlier today,

@Ukrhydroenergo

said that their monitors at Nikopol aren't working (presumably because the reservoir's water level is now off-scale).

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Укргідроенерго

@Ukrhydroenergo

Jun 13

Operational information of #Ukrhydroenergo as of 8:00 a.m. on June 13

Water level measurements at the #Nikopol station by the Ukrainian #Hydrometeorological Center have been temporarily suspended due to siltation below the installed sensors. #KakhovkaDam #KakhovkaReservoir

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15h

Meanwhile, Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery continues to show water flowing through the busted dam, indicating that levels are likely to fall even further in coming days.

For reference, here's what it looks like compared to a German topological map from 1943 (h/t to

@tom_bike

for showing me that one).

This product from Sentinel-2 clearly shows the contours that are starting to emerge as the reservoir reverts to marshland with the Dnipro river flowing through the middle.

NEW: Satellite imagery shows that a Ukrainian reservoir critical to safety at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is bottoming out. For the first time since it was filled in 1956, the bottom of the reservoir is becoming visible.

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Sigh. I can still remember when we all got our news from weekly glossy magazines.... Those days are long gone I'm afraid. (via

)

It briefly looked like the Kakhovka reservoir had stabilized at 9m, but now it appears that it's just dropped below the sensors.

Quote Tweet

Укргідроенерго

@Ukrhydroenergo

Jun 13

Operational information of #Ukrhydroenergo as of 8:00 a.m. on June 13

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18h

Love that kicker quote.

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No Context Brits

@NoContextBrits

18h

The slowest news day in Swansea.

Here's a chart of the Kakhovka Reservoir's height by date (Source: Hydraweb/Energoatom).

Current water levels in the reservoir are already more than 2 meters below this radarsat data. Source: energoatom.com.ua/o-1206231.html

Martin “Doomsday” Pfeiffer

Geoff Brumfiel Retweeted

@NuclearAnthro

There is some potential (so says French IRSN) for the reservoir at ZNPP to collapse if water level drops below say 10m. No hard data on that and one hopes structural integrity of cooling pond is being monitored en.irsn.fr/EN/newsroom/Ne

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The massive drop in water level at the Kakhovka Reservoir is now very visible in satellite radar data. The question now is how low will it go?

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The massive drop in water level at the Kakhovka Reservoir is now very visible in satellite radar data. The question now is how low will it go?

The speed of the water-level drop at kakhovka appears to be slowing.

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David Helms

@davidhelms570

11 JUN 2023 at 19:00 UTC #KakhovakaReservoir height 9.04 m Change from 4 June 2023: -8.03 m Rate of fall since 11 June 2023/07:00 UTC: -0.31 m in 12 hrs or -2.6 cm per hr Reservoir level rate-of-fall significantly decreased in the 12 hrs between reports t.me/s/energoatom_u

Jun 11

Kakhovka reservoir is continuing to drop at about a meter a day (11 June update below). Currently at 9.45 m asl. That’s quite fast and in line with previous days. energoatom.com.ua/o-1106231.html

Geoff Brumfiel Retweeted

David Helms

@davidhelms570

Jun 10

The water level at the North Crimean Canal #NCC at Tavrisk has dropped below the intake. Good and bad. While water stops flowing to occupied Crimea, it also stops flowing to left bank Kherson which will deny drinking water and irrigation.

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Anton Gerashchenko

@Gerashchenko_en

Jun 10

This is what the North Crimean canal looks like now. Crimea faces problems with drinking water, especially for agriculture and irrigation.

0:16

123.1K views

Can President Trump Really Tweet A Highly Classified Satellite Photo? Yep, He Can

Geoff Brumfiel Retweeted

David Helms

@davidhelms570

Jun 10

10 JUN 2023 at 07:00 UTC #KakhovakaReservoir height 10.42 meters Change from 4 June 2023: -6.92 meters Rate of fall since 9 June 2023/08:00 UTC: -1.32 meters in 23 hours or -5.7 cm per hour Level predicted to fall to 3 meters in 6-7 days

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WED, 9 JUN 2023 at 08:00 UTC #KakhovakaReservoir height 11.74 meters Change from 4 June 2023: -5.6 meters Rate of fall since 8 June 2023/18:00 UTC: -0.76 meters in 14 hours or -5.4 cm per hour Level predicted to fall to 3 meters in 7-8 days energoatom.com.ua/o-0906231.html

(Well actually I guess the docs were still govt property, but he could have made copies. And of course it would have been political suicide. But you get my point!)

And he knew the rules because he’d done it before!

npr.org

Last week, the president tweeted a highly detailed image showing the aftermath of an accident at Iran's Imam Khomeini Space Center. It reveals the power of U.S. spy satellites.

What really blows my mind about the Trump indictment is that he had the power to avoid this entire mess completely on his own. All he had to do is have somebody draft a declassification order for everything he wanted to take and sign it before he left office.

Ok… most important question about the indictment: What are the “beautiful mind paper boxes”?

It’s subpoena happy hour at casa Brumfiel. Look at the alphabet soup of agencies Trump allegedly kept documents from! All my favorites are in here! 🕵️‍♂️🛰️☢️🚀

NEW: Energoatom has put the Unit 5 reactor at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant into "cold shutdown". It had been in a hot-shutdown configuration to provide steam for limited use on site. But citing the loss of the reservoir, among other factors, they've decided to cool it down.

SBIRS uses infrared surveillance to provide early missile warning for the U.S. military and is considered one of the nation’s highest priority space programs.

More from Lockheed here: lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products

@brianweeden

can now come in and correct this thread.

lockheedmartin.com

SBIRS

We know they are extremely good at what they do and can see a lot more than just ICBM launches. Any bright flash is likely to trigger them, even meteorites can do it! Their coverage and sensitivity are why they're the most likely to spot an explosion somewhere in Ukraine.

SBIRS has two parts: "SBIRS High" -- a constellation of geostationary satellites that watch the entire globe all at once. "SBIRS Low" -- a group of lower-orbiting satellites that provide higher resolution imagery. The exact capabilities of these sats remain classified but...

Although the official did not confirm the exact system used, I think that a SBIRS sat is most likely. SBIRS stands for the Space-Based Infrared System. It is a vital part of the U.S. early-warning network designed to watch for a ICBM missile launch anywhere on earth.

NEW:

has confirmed with a "U.S. Official" that an American surveillance satellite saw an explosion at the Kakhovka dam. The official said that the image did not indicate who was responsible or whether the blast occurred above or below water.

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Of course if you read this far, you probably want to learn more about SBIRS. Here you go!

lockheedmartin.com

SBIRS

SBIRS uses infrared surveillance to provide early missile warning for the U.S. military and is considered one of the nation’s highest priority space programs.

Final thought: Dam failures are often complex and have many factors. The United States Society of Dams (it's a thing) sent me this release, which is just a good place to end. Overtopping, previous damage, and whatever this explosion was could all have led to the collapse.

Lastly, there are all these videos of what appear to be mines exploding around the dam at random (this one via

@molfar_global

, after the dam collapsed). I'm going to be honest, I've got no idea what to make of these... but there was boom boom stuff around the dam it seems.

In terms of a Russian strike, it would make a lot more sense logistically. They had the best access to the dam and could lay a lot of explosives in the key parts. Ukr Intel posted this audio it claims is from RUS troops. But no sense of who they are...

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СБ України

@ServiceSsu

Seismic stations detected explosion at Ukrainian dam

Перехоплення СБУ підтверджує, що Каховську ГЕС підірвала диверсійна група окупантів

bit.ly/43Nq6uv

1:39

99.9K views

First the case against a 🇺🇦 strike: Most of what I've read said it would take a lot of hits to blow the dam with artillery or warheads, which makes sense. Also, there's a lack of debris on the roofs of the buildings in the

@Maxar

30 cm, which is a little odd...

We don't know the exact cause of the explosion. Options include: ❌ Ukrainian artillery/missile strike -- unlikely ❌ Russian demolition -- More likely ❌ Accidental detonation of a mine or other explosive -- More likely... ish?

Yesterday I reported on a faint seismic signature picked up by seismic arrays in Romania and Ukraine. Together with less well verified on-the-ground evidence (text and video), it feels like there is a strong growing consensus the dam was blown.

npr.org

A Norwegian organization says that two seismic networks it oversees saw an explosion at the Kakhovka dam around the time it failed.

So U.S. satellites spotted a blast at the Kakhovka Dam on the morning it collapsed, according to NYT. I guess this would be SBIRS, right? It's certainly capable and weather conditions were favorable that night.

nytimes.com

U.S. Official Says Spy Satellites Detected Explosion Just Before Dam Collapse

U.S. spy agencies still do not have any solid evidence to determine who caused the destruction, the senior administration official said.

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Sorry, I was typing quick, didn't mean to make the IF quite so emphatic. No reason to think it's wrong, especially given the NOSAR data from yesterday.

npr.org

Seismic stations detected explosion at Ukrainian dam

A Norwegian organization says that two seismic networks it oversees saw an explosion at the Kakhovka dam around the time it failed.