Credits: NASA/NOAA GOES Project/Dennis Chesters
The large snowfall in the leeward side of the Great Lakes on Nov. 19 and 20 was seen by NOAA’s GOES-East satellite and made into a movie from the vantage point of the satellite’s orbit in space.
An animation of visible and infrared imagery from NOAA’s GOES-East satellite on Nov. 19 and 20 showed the large snowfall downwind of the Great Lakes during the third week of November, as polar air streamed across the still-warm waters.
Chilly Arctic air temperatures in the upper teens to lower 20s Fahrenheit moved over the warmer waters (middle to upper 40s Fahrenheit) of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and helped create the November 18 major lake effect snowfall event.
“Because the infrared GOES images are inverted in brightness to make the clouds appear white, the frozen ground appears grey, and the warm lakes appear dark,” said Dennis Chesters of NASA/NOAA GOES Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This contrast will fade away during winter, as the lakes come down to the temperature of the surrounding land.”
In the animation, viewers will also see dozens of large man-made lakes behind dams which appear at night in the Southeast U.S. Chesters created the animation.
On Friday, November 21, 2014, the National Weather Service noted: Another round of heavy lake-effect snow is forecast for the Great Lakes through mid-day Friday. An additional 30 inches or more could fall in some locations, on top of the impressive amounts that have fallen already. This will result in very difficult or nearly impossible travel at times in the heaviest snow bands. The snow should taper off during the morning on Friday.
To create the video and imagery, NASA/NOAA’s GOES Project takes the cloud data from NOAA’s GOES-East satellite and overlays it on a true-color image of land and ocean created by data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites. Together, those data created the entire picture of the storm and show its movement. After the storm system passes, the snow on the ground becomes visible.
GOES satellites provide the kind of continuous monitoring necessary for intensive data analysis. Geostationary describes an orbit in which a satellite is always in the same position with respect to the rotating Earth. This allows GOES to hover continuously over one position on Earth’s surface, appearing stationary. As a result, GOES provide a constant vigil for the atmospheric “triggers” for severe weather conditions such as tornadoes, flash floods, hail storms and hurricanes.
For updated information about the storm system, visit NOAA’s NWS website: www.weather.gov
For more information about GOES satellites, visit: www.goes.noaa.gov/ or goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center