MODIS High-Resolution Satellite Shows Fun Stuff

Sorry I haven't blogged lately, folks. I have been extremely busy. You probably already know this from reading my blogs about Tule Fog, Tokyo Snow, and more, but the MODIS Today website contains the highest-resolution real-time satellite data of the United States. The only problem is that (because the satellite isn't "geo-stationary") it only comes out once per day (see clarification from Scott in the Comments - it's actually two photos from two satellites, one late morning and one early afternoon). Here's today's image (click for insanely-high-resolution images):

Times vary based on orbit and season, but the idea is to get a shot of the entire country when the sun is high (because it's a "visible" satellite -- essentially a high-resolution digital camera photo from space), so generally you can imagine it taking place around the middle of the day (later for the west coast because the satellite has to make two passes and the images are stitched together). If something cool was happening weatherwise at that moment, MODIS will have captured it in beautiful, high resolution. For example, check out what all I found on last Monday's image (March 7th):

1. Big chunks of ice breaking up on Lake Erie:

2. Exactly where the snow cover stops in southeastern Pennsylvania:

3. A high-level cloud shadow over snow cover in Canada:

4. Hole-punch clouds northeast of Louisiana:

5. Jet contrails over northern Florida:

6. Snow on the mountaintops in the Southern Appalachians:

And the next day, it may have caught the wave clouds shown in this photograph taken in Plymouth, Massachusetts:

Confirming a cloud photo that you took on the ground from the earth above is a great educational weather lesson. The next time you shoot some cool clouds around mid-day, check MODIS! I'm sure I've only scratched the surface here, so leave me a Comment and let me know what else you see!

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