January 3, 2021 - Snow in the U.S. Midwest

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   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



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-01-03
 
