In
late February 2013, a major snowstorm made its way across the
continental United States, dropping snow from Colorado to the Great
Lakes region. The National Weather Service reported snow totals of five
to eight inches in many parts of the Central Plains and Upper
Mississippi River Valley. Some parts of the Central Plains experienced
snowfall rates as high as four inches per hour, along with thundersnow.
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP
satellite captured this nighttime view at 1:55 a.m. CST on February 23.
This imagery is from the VIIRS "day-night band," which detects light in a
range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared. The day-night band
takes advantage of moonlight, airglow, and starlight to brighten the
landscape and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city
lights and snow cover. On the night of this image, the Moon was nearly
full.
City lights glow like clusters of stars against a backdrop
of grey and black in this image. The snow appears medium gray, and
stretches from northern Texas to the Dakotas, and from the Rocky
Mountain states eastward past Chicago. When VIIRS acquired this image,
snow cover across multiple states had persisted since the previous
night.
Image Credit: NASA/Suomi NPP
No comments:
Post a Comment