Videos: Two Different Satellite Views of the Big Snowstorm of 2011

By Nancy Atkinson - February 3, 2011 at 12:11 PM UTC | Planetary Science
us-snowstorm.jpg

To speak in the vernacular of the peasantry,

this storm was a whopper.

Heavy snow, ice, freezing rain, and frigid wind battered about two thirds of the United States, making it "a winter storm of historic proportions," said the National Weather Service. This animation—made with images from the NOAA-NASA GOES 13 satellite—shows the giant storm developing and moving across the country between January 31 and February 2. Below is another video view from GOES-East satellite, which includes infrared water vapor imagery from January 29 -February 1, 2011.

And there's also an update on Cyclone Yasi.

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[caption id="attachment_83082" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Cyclone Yasi as seen on Feb. 1, 2011 from The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite"]

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Yasi weakened after coming ashore early on Thursday morning but was still strong enough to produce high winds and tidal surges that sent waves crashing deep into seaside communities. Thankfully, so far no lives have been lost because of this storm. Officials said lives were saved because after days of dire warnings people heeded directions to flee to evacuation centers or bunker themselves at home.

Track the storm on WeatherUnderground,

and read more on the latest news from Yasi on

The Guardian.

Sources:

NASA Earth Observatory

,

SolarWatcher

,

The Guardian

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com