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Blizzard Hits Colorado
| Title |
Blizzard Hits Colorado |
| Description |
Parts of Colorado and Wyoming were engulfed in a record-setting blizzard between March 18 and 19, 2003. The Rocky Mountains were hammered with as much as 87 inches (7.25 feet) of snow in places, and Denver received about 30 inches, which shut down the airport and stranded motorists. Several people lost their lives in snow-related accidents, and more than one hundred roofs collapsed in Denver from the weight of the heavy, wet snow. Avalanche danger skyrocketed, and an avalanche blocked the road to a mountain ski resort, forcing guests and employees to sleep overnight on floors. The danger was too high for them to venture out onto the slopes. This false-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image shows the skies clearing over Colorado and Wyoming on Thursday afternoon (March 20, 2003) at the time of the Terra satellite overpass. In the image, snow on the ground is bright blue, liquid water clouds are white, vegetation is green, naturally bare ground is tan, and water is deep blue. The blanket of snow softens the sharp peaks of the Rockies that are normally visible. The storm left behind a blanket of snow that stretched from Wyoming and Nebraska (top left and right), through Colorado (center), and down into the peaks of New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the north-central part of the state. In Colorado, the snow reached well out into the plains. In a state desperate for water, the huge snowfall should provide some relief. However, with temperatures expected rise rapidly by the weekend in places like Denver, residents in the lower elevations must prepare themselves for flooding after what is being reported as the worst blizzard in the last century. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
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| Title |
Blizzards in the Western United States |
| Description |
A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
…
| Title |
Blizzards in the Western United States |
| Description |
A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
…
| Title |
Blizzards in the Western United States |
| Description |
A series of heavy winter storms pummeled parts of the western United States between December 24, 2003, and January 3, 2004, blanketing the region with deep snow. Salt Lake City, Utah, reported more than six feet of snow, according to news reports. The blizzards that rolled through California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado closed roads, knocked out power, and claimed at least two lives in subsequent avalanches. These Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] (MODIS) images, taken on January 5, 2004, by the Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite, show the extent of the snowfall from California in the west to the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado in the east. The Great Salt Lake is the two-toned body of water in the center of the images. In the top image, shown in true color, only a sliver of green land west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains can be see on the left side of the image?clouds and snow obscure the rest of the landscape. The bottom image shows the same scene in false color. Here, snow and ice are dark red and orange, while clouds are white and peach. Water is black. The false color image helps differentiate between cloud cover and snow and ice on the ground. The high resolution images provided above are at 500 meters per pixel. Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] at NASA GSFC |
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Drought on the Great Plains
| Title |
Drought on the Great Plains |
| Description |
Across the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, devastating drought spread across grasslands and croplands in summer 2006. Poor winter snowfall and a blisteringly hot summer [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13742 ] following several years of dry conditions have created a dire situation for many farmers and ranchers across the region. According to a recent article [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/us/29drought.html?ex=1157688000&en=13a216546b7d4243&ei=5070 ] on the New York Times Website, many people are comparing the conditions to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The widespread drought conditions are obvious in this vegetation anomaly image based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov ] satellite. Places where vegetation is healthier or more abundant than average are green, places where vegetation is about the same as average are pale yellow, and places where vegetation is not as healthy or abundant as average are brown. Gray patches show where no data were available, probably because of persistent clouds. One of the most common satellite-based vegetation maps is a scale, or index, of vegetation greenness called the "NDVI," short for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. This image compares NDVI values from July 28-August 12, 2006, to the average values from 2001-2005. Vegetation was faring worst along the Missouri River through North and South Dakota, but below-average vegetation conditions stretch across parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, northwestern Nebraska, and Minnesota as well. The plains of Canada's Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces were suffering drought, too. A few small pockets of green in the image reveal where vegetation greenness values observed by MODIS were higher than average: the mountains of north-central Colorado, southeastern Nebraska, and the Red River Valley. The Red River Valley experienced widespread snowfall and heavy rains in the spring of 2006, leading to significant flooding. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13500 ] The early-season moisture may have helped the vegetation in the area withstand the hot summer. According to the August 29, 2006, update from the U.S. Drought Monitor, [ http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html ] most of the Northern Great Plains, as well as much of Oklahoma and Texas, was still in the midst of drought, with many areas falling into the highest category: exceptional drought. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by Inbal Reshef as part of the Global Agricultural Monitoring Project [ http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/glam.cfm ] between NASA, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), and the University of Maryland. |
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Snow Across the Western Unit
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| Title |
Snow Across the Western United States |
| Description |
The Sunday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year in the United States as people return home from the four-day weekend. Sunday, November 28, 2004, was no exception, but this year, Mother Nature snarled traffic across a large swath of the west with an intense snow storm. The storm dumped up to 24 inches (0.6 meters) of snow on the mountains of southern Utah, and blanketed the surrounding states. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured this image the following day, on November 29, after the clouds moved out. The storm's path is clearly visible in this image: a track of white extends from southeastern Oregon and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California to Colorado and New Mexico in the east. The National Weather Service reports that the storm moved east across the Plains States of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Iowa on November 29 and November 30. The snow highlights some interesting features of the Western United States that might not otherwise be obvious in satellite imagery. Sandwiched between the straight diagonal line of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the west (the straight edge of the snow) and the Rocky Mountains in Central Utah in the east is the Great Basin Desert. This high desert basin covers a heart-shaped region of southern Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and southern Idaho and is clearly outlined in snow. Hemmed between two large mountain ranges that trap moisture from the east and the west, it is the United States' largest desert. It receives on average 7-12 inches of precipitation every year. The water that does fall in the region drains to interior, closed basins instead of the ocean, giving the region its name. The Great Basin Desert is made up of a series of mostly north-south running mountain ranges and valleys that give the land a wrinkled, wash-board appearance, particularly in Nevada. The snow highlights elevation change elsewhere in the image. The imposing Rocky Mountains appear slightly darker than the valleys around them, and the peaks and high plateaus in the south are covered in snow while the pink desert lowlands remain bare. On the right edge of the image, the flat plains of eastern Wyoming and Colorado are an even, uninterrupted white. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes DAAC |
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Blizzard Hits Colorado: Imag
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nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
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Parts of Colorado and Wyomin
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Colorado.A2003079
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2003-03-18 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
| identifier |
Colorado.A2003079 |
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Drought on the Great Plains:
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nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
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Across the Great Plains of t
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nplainsndvia_tmo_2006209
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2006-08-12 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by Inbal Reshef as part of the www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/glam.cfm Global Agricultural Monitoring Project between NASA, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), and the University of Maryland. |
| identifier |
nplainsndvia_tmo_2006209 |
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Major Snowstorm in the U.S.
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nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
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The Sunday after Thanksgivin
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terra_uswest_29nov04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-11-29 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes DAAC. |
| identifier |
terra_uswest_29nov04 |
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Blizzards in the Western Uni
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nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
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* eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/ima
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terra_uswest_05jan04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2003-12-24 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
| identifier |
terra_uswest_05jan04 |
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Front Range of the Rockies
PIA03406
Sol (our sun)
Multi-angle Imaging SpectroR
…
| Title |
Front Range of the Rockies |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
These MISR images from May 12, 2001 (Terra orbit 7447) include portions of southern Wyoming, central Colorado, and western Nebraska. The top view is from the instrument's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera. The bottom image is a stereo "anaglyph" generated using data from the nadir and 46-degree-forward cameras. Viewing the anaglyph with red/blue glasses (red filter over your left eye) gives a 3-D effect. To facilitate stereo viewing, the images have been oriented with north at the left. Each image measures 422 kilometers x 213 kilometers. The South Platte River enters just to the right of center at the top of the images. It wends its way westward (down), then turns southward (right) where it flows through the city of Denver. Located at the western edge of the Great Plains, Denver is nicknamed the "Mile High City", a consequence of its 1609-meter (5280-foot) elevation above sea level. It shows up in the imagery as a grayish patch surrounded by numerous agricultural fields to the north and east. Denver is situated just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, located in the lower right of the images. The Rockies owe their present forms to tectonic uplift and sculpting by millions of years of erosion. Scattered cumulus clouds floating above the mountain peaks are visible in these images, and stand out most dramatically in the 3-D stereo view. To the north of Denver, other urban areas included within these images are Boulder, Greeley, Longmont, and Fort Collins, Colorado, Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. |
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