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By early this month several winter storms had left snow cover over much of The Northeast Quadrant. Mostly clear skies over the eastern United States and Canada allowed the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite this unobstructed view on March 6.
The navy blue of the eastern Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean contrasts with the snow cover in this true-color image. South of Lake Ontario, the Finger Lakes resemble giant claw marks in otherwise snow-covered New York. Snow appears the most opaque in Ohio, central New York, and between Lake Huron and its neighboring lakes to the east. In Canada, the mottled appearance likely results from a combination of snow cover and forest.
Terra, which launched ten years ago on Dec. 18, 1999, is a multi-national NASA scientific research satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth. It is the flagship of NASA's Earth Observing System. Terra carries a payload of five remote sensors designed to monitor the state of Earth's environment and ongoing changes in its climate system. In the decade since Terra launched, scientists have gained insight into the intricate connections that shape our planet's climate.
Congratulations to NASA on this Terra-ific decade in orbit!
Freezing Temperatures...If any of you have been outside the past several days, you surely noticed it's a bit cold out. The good news is the zephyr like wind over the past weekend should be dying down, so congrats on surviving the Great Winter Wind Weekend of '10. 
Down here in DC, the Potomac is starting to freeze. Chunks of ice are flowing. Unfortunately, for those of you adverse to the cold you'd better hunker down and bundle up - it looks like the frigid temperatures are going to be with us for the foreseeable future.
The potential for more cold even triggered an automatic halt on Monday to trading on New York’s ICE Futures US exchange (think damaged orange crops in Florida).
Around the World... China's national meteorological office warned that temperatures in the natio
n's far north could fall to around minus 32 degrees Celsius. The image on the right acquired from NASA's Terra satellite on January 4, shows the record snowfall that covered Beijing and much of China after the new year.
Our friends across the pond in the UK are experiencing lows from -2 to -8C. Even in Russia where they are used to the cold, lows tonight in Moscow are expected to hover around zero Fahrenheit.
More Snow??? The upshot here (for the cold averse) looks to be the potential for more snow across the Northeast toward the end of the week. I firmly believe that as long as its going to be cold it may as well snow.
By early this month several winter storms had left snow cover over much of The Northeast Quadrant. Mostly clear skies over the eastern United States and Canada allowed the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite this unobstructed view on March 6.
