Envirocast® On-Line Feature of the Week -- January 16, 2007

Oklahoma After Ice Storm

The images in this Envirocast® Bulletin were taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Aqua satellite on January 15, 2007. They show Oklahoma after the ice storm.

Oklahoma After Ice Storm

In visible images (true color), it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between clouds and snow on the ground (under mostly clear skies). Of course, if you have access to a sequence of visible images, clouds will typically move in time while snow cover won't. On the other hand, while looking at a single visible image, meteorologists can determine whether a blotch of white is snow cover by identifying rivers or lakes, which early in the cold season, are ice- and snow-free and therefore appear as dark fingers amidst white snow cover.

 

We also provide false color imagery.  In these false color images, clouds are white, water is black, snow cover is in aqua color and vegetation is green.

Environmental Impacts:

  • From Friday, January 12 through Monday, January 16 an ice and snow storm made its way from the Midwest up to New England.

  • The ice storm has been blamed for at least 41 deaths so far.  17 in Oklahoma, 8 in Missouri, 8 in Iowa, 4 in New York, 3 in Texas, and 1 in Maine.

  • The weight of the ice snapped tree limbs, popped transformers, and made electricity cables sag, knocking out power.

  • About 100,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma, 312,000 in Missouri, and 145,000 in New York and New Hampshire are still without power.  At the height of the storm over 200,000 customers were without power in Michigan.

  • Certain areas of Oklahoma have a layer of ice up to 4 inches thick.

Supplementary Material:

NASA's AQUA Satellite:

  • Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA Earth Science satellite mission collecting about the Earth's water cycle, including evaporation from the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice. The Aqua spacecraft (formally known as EOS-PM) was successfully launched on May 4, 2002 at the Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in Lompoc, California. t is flying at an altitude of 705 km (438 miles) observing the Earth, and the life expectancy is 6 years. [Aqua's Orbit], [Animation of MODIS Observing the Earth]

  • Aqua passes south to north over the equator in the afternoon, and thus it passes over us at the same local time every day, approximately 1:30 p.m.

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