Montavilla Atlas

Heat Vulnerability & Canopy

Land surface temperature across Montavilla, derived from Landsat 9 thermal imagery, with parks and natural areas highlighted as cooling zones.

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Key findings

Land surface temperature ranges 33.2–64.5°C (mean 49.0°C) — this is land surface temperature, not air temperature.
Hot spots: the commercial corridors along SE Stark and SE 82nd Ave, plus industrial parcels, reach 55–65°C surface temperature.
Cool zones: Mt Tabor Park, Montavilla Park, and school campuses sit at 33–42°C.
Heat-equity gap: the densest residential blocks along Stark show elevated surface temperatures with minimal tree canopy.

Data & method

Dataset	Source	Date	License
Landsat thermal (ST_B10)	USGS Landsat 9 C2L2 via Microsoft Planetary Computer STAC	2024-07-09	Public domain
Parks / cooling zones	Metro RLIS ORCA	2026-06-03	Open data

Method:

Downloaded the thermal band for July 9, 2024 (0.19% cloud cover), converted it to surface temperature in °C, reprojected from EPSG:32610 to EPSG:4326, and rendered a continuous heat surface (RdYlBu_r colormap) with ORCA parks overlaid as cooling zones.

Projection (CRS): EPSG:4326 (WGS84)

Tools: Python / rasterio / geopandas / matplotlib

Confidence

MEDIUM. Landsat thermal is 100 m native resolution (resampled to 30 m), so it captures block-level patterns but not individual parcels. A single mid-morning overpass (~10:30 AM) underestimates peak afternoon heat.