Snow Cover in the Great Lakes Region, United States
snow cover in the Great Lakes region with Night Lights
An Arctic air mass brought snow to communities around the Great Lakes on December 14, 2016. The lake-effect snow came on the heels of an earlier accumulation that dumped several feet of snow in some areas the week before. The VIIRS DNB on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this image on December 14. The instrument can detect faint light sources—in this case, the reflection of the full Moon on the fresh snow. Clouds blur the landscape in the bottom left part of the image. Parallel rows of clouds, called cloud streets, appear above Lake Huron and Lake Superior. These clouds are created by cold, dry air blowing over a lake and accumulating water vapor.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA, Earth at Night book
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Technical support
- Amy Moran (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Data visualizer
- Joshua Stevens (SSAI)
Release date
This page was originally published on Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:43 AM EST.