Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Satellite Images Show Dueling Snowstorms in the US and UK

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OK, let’s duke it out. Who had it worse this past week as far as wintery weather: the entire United Kingdom, or the middle part of the United States? We’ll the the satellite images tell story.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired the image above on December 7, two days after the weekend snow storm. A swath of white defines the path of the storm from Minnesota to Kentucky in the image. Weather predictions look there is more on the way this weekend.

And for the UK:

The UK covered in snow, as seen on Dec. 8, 2010. Credit: NASA's Aqua satellite.

Snow and clouds present an almost uniform white to this satellite image. Snow extends from Northern Ireland southward past Dublin, and from Scotland southward into England. Snow cover stops short of London; the white expanses in that area are clouds. Snow and clouds present an almost uniform white to the satellite sensor, but clouds can be distinguished from the underlying snow by their billowy shapes and indistinct margins.

The United Kingdom Met Office forecast that the cold weather would gradually loosen its grip on the region. For December 9 and 10, 2010, the Met Office forecast rain, but also warned of widespread icy roads.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

11 Replies to “Satellite Images Show Dueling Snowstorms in the US and UK”

  2. Record low temperatures where measured all over the Uk & Ireland for the last 3 weeks.
    The terra image of the UK & Ireland above is what it looks after the worst of it, the terra image from the 2nd December shows a worst picture with both the southern parts of the UK & Ireland had snow cover, most of this had fallen on November 29th.

    The Easterly winds prevented the nice warm winds of the

    I missed 50% of work last week due to and had no running water for about 10 days, and I live in sunny southwest of Ireland.

  3. The Easterly winds prevented the nice warm winds of the South West from thawing us sooner.
    More cold weather is forecast for a few days time, hope it isn’t as bad.

    1. You should be in East Anglia where I am! We’ve hardly been above freezing for the last several weeks! where I live we have had very little snow, just a couple of centimetres, but the frosts have been terrible, for this region at least.

      Only yesterday I was commenting to my wife that middle America is suffering almost the same conditions we are also facing, then I come across Nancy’s story today!

      Friday 10th December & today, Saturday,11th, the temps have risen notably & we are forecast a max of 6º-7ºC today! But it’s back to square one Sunday, & the coming week we are forecast more very cold weather. 🙁

      1. We in the Midwest, Michigan to be precise,we call this weather pattern “winter”. It starts hard in mid November and runs strong through the end of March. It always makes me wonder why our 41 degrees North is so rotten when I compare to to other locals. Oh well thats why I moved to Florida.

      2. We are 51 degrees north, but our “winters” are mild, with no snow, temperatures rarely drop below 0 degrees Celsius, most days are 10 degrees Celsius on average during winter thanks to the gulf stream and warm south west winds. Weather conditions like the UK and Ireland have these past few weeks are more than just “winter”.

  4. I live in the Gulf-Stream warmed South West UK and even here it was -8, not as bad a 81/82 though – yet 🙁

  5. Cool, lived in Wisconsin all my life and didn’t realize we had an impact crater,

    (Rock Elm, Wis)http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/mar04/NN_Wisccrater.html
    sticks out like a sore thumb with all the snow we’ve got.

  6. Why is it every time Universe Today posts a Earth weather-related post I have to be right in the middle of the mess? :^P

  7. Living in Britain [Hull on the east coast] I just love the way we over-react to winter. Every year without exception we are ‘surprised’ by the arrival of snow, ice and plummetting temperatures. After a few days of t.v. pictures of children on sledges the comment turns to apocalyptic visions as traffic is gridlocked and local authorities fail to cope with 3 inches of snow. Usually a week later the problem has gone but the recriminations continue until summer. This past fortnight has shown how much we and western Europe depend on the Gulf Stream.

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