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January 3, 2021 - Snow in the U.S. Midwest
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A strong winter storm whipped across part of the Great Plains and Upper Midwest from December 23-24, 2020, bringing strong winds and white-out conditions to several locations. According to The Weather Channel, numerous crashes, multi-vehicle pileups and road closures were reported across South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota on December 26, including a 20-vehicle pileup on I-29 in eastern South Dakota. Strong winds, heavy snow, and poor visibility also impacted air travel, with more than 400 flights cancelled across the region.
By December 25, the storm had moved eastward, where it was bringing rain, flooding, heavy winds to the East Coast. Power outages were reported in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York along with widespread flooding in several states. Where temperatures dropped, rain turned to snow and ice. The National Weather Service confirms a tornado struck Suffolk, Virginia.
While the East Coast was feeling the brunt of the storm, the skies over the Upper Midwest were beginning to clear. On December 25, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a false-color image of the aftermath of the winter storm in parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota.
In a true-color image, which is created using visible light, snow, ice, and cloud are difficult to tell apart because all appear bright white. By using infrared and visible light (MODIS Bands 7,2,1) it becomes easy to distinguish between the three. Here open land or fallow fields appear brown, vegetation looks bright green, and water appears dark blue or black. Snow and ice both appear electric blue but, since ice is smoother than granular snow, ice appears brighter. Cloud appears white, except for cold, high clouds that contain ice, in which case they appear lightly tinted electric blue. This image shows that snow unevenly blankets the three states. The Missouri River remains ice-free, but several lakes in northern Minnesota are completely frozen over.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 12/25/2020
Resolutions:
1km (137.7 KB), 500m (564.6 KB), 250m (1.8 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
A strong winter storm whipped across part of the Great Plains and Upper Midwest from December 23-24, 2020, bringing strong winds and white-out conditions to several locations. According to The Weather Channel, numerous crashes, multi-vehicle pileups and road closures were reported across South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota on December 26, including a 20-vehicle pileup on I-29 in eastern South Dakota. Strong winds, heavy snow, and poor visibility also impacted air travel, with more than 400 flights cancelled across the region.
By December 25, the storm had moved eastward, where it was bringing rain, flooding, heavy winds to the East Coast. Power outages were reported in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York along with widespread flooding in several states. Where temperatures dropped, rain turned to snow and ice. The National Weather Service confirms a tornado struck Suffolk, Virginia.
While the East Coast was feeling the brunt of the storm, the skies over the Upper Midwest were beginning to clear. On December 25, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a false-color image of the aftermath of the winter storm in parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota.
In a true-color image, which is created using visible light, snow, ice, and cloud are difficult to tell apart because all appear bright white. By using infrared and visible light (MODIS Bands 7,2,1) it becomes easy to distinguish between the three. Here open land or fallow fields appear brown, vegetation looks bright green, and water appears dark blue or black. Snow and ice both appear electric blue but, since ice is smoother than granular snow, ice appears brighter. Cloud appears white, except for cold, high clouds that contain ice, in which case they appear lightly tinted electric blue. This image shows that snow unevenly blankets the three states. The Missouri River remains ice-free, but several lakes in northern Minnesota are completely frozen over.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 12/25/2020
Resolutions:
1km (137.7 KB), 500m (564.6 KB), 250m (1.8 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
