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| First satellite photo Sunday, March 7 |
Especially last week, when a warm spell, peaking with record high temperatures last Thursday, really did a number on the snow cover. We'll walk you through the images, below, because they're pretty neat to follow.
In each photo, click on them to embiggen them and make them easier to see. (Fun side note: "Embiggen" is an official word, says Merriam-Webster).
The first shot, at the top of this post, was taken Sunday, March 7. All these satellite are real color photos, not enhanced. It was still cold that day, and all of Vermont had a snow cover. You can see bare ground encroaching on the southwestern tip of Vermont from near Albany, but everything was pretty still white.
Snow extended into most of central and western Massachusetts and western Connecticut
A large part of Lake Champlain (dark blue) still had open water, but that white you see in the northern reaches of the lake is snow-covered ice. The Champlain Valley looks whiter because there's less forest and more open, snow covered fields.
The large darkish circle in northern New York is the Adirondack Park. The white flecks within that circle are snow and ice covered lakes and ponds.
Next image is next It was taken on Tuesday, March 9.
As you can see in the satellite photo, northern Vermont is largely obscured by what are known as gravity wave clouds. You know how in a river, when flowing water goes up and over a rock, you see a series of "echo" waves in the water downstream from the rock.
Same thing is happening here. There's probably an area of rising air in the St. Lawrence Valley of southern Quebec that's forcing the fast moving northwest wind up and over that patch of rising air. The northern Adirondacks and northern Green Mountains are also making air go up and over them, contributing to these waves.
It doesn't really matter that we can't see most of northern Vermont. Not much has changed on the ground between Sunday and Tuesday.
In southern Vermont, you can now see bare ground sneaking into far southwestern Vermont - it got up to 48 degrees in Bennington that day. Snow is disappearing fast from much of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The next satellite photo was taken Friday, March 12
The day before had brought those record high temperatures and when this photo was taken early Friday afternoon, it was still sunny and warm just ahead of a cold front coming down from Quebec.
The changes - as you can see - are dramatic from just two days earlier. The entire Champlain Valley has gone from white to brown as the snow there pretty much all melted. The dark blue of Lake Champlain has expanded as ice broke up.
If you look at the far northern end of the lake, you can see a light blue where St. Albans Bay is. The ice has weakened, the snow has melted off it, there's standing water on top of it, so you get the light blue.
The higher elevations across the region are still snow covered.
If you look carefully in southwestern Vermont between Rutland and Bennington, you can see a very narrow string of brown between the white snow of the hills. That narrow brown string is the valley floor along Route 7 between the Taconic Mountains to the west and the southern Greens.
The brown gap of snow-free ground widens around Rutland, and you can see the valley that holds Route 4 heading west to Fair Haven is brown. You see a circle of snow just north of Route 4 before you get to the brown Champlain Valley.
That whitish circle is the northern extent of the Taconic Range, specifically Hanley Mountain and the wonderfully named Grandpa's Knob near West Rutland.
The National Weather Service office in South Burlington's website has satellite views of the Northeast in all different modes of seeing satellite images. On the left side of the National Weather Service satellite page is the GeoColor, which during the day gives you the real-color images you see in this post. This, to me, is probably the most fun part of the NWS/South Burlington website.
On that page, you can zoom in on different areas, and really look at some cool cloud patterns when they develop.
If, for example, there's an odd cloud not too far away from your location - say an isolated thunderstorm or those wave clouds I mentioned above - you can then go outside and compare the satellite view versus the real view.
Though there is a slight delay. The cloud you see on satellite might have moved on by the time you get outside and look. It's still worth a shot, though. The image updates once every five minutes, so that's a pretty good turnaround time. I've had great luck with checking the satellite than going immediately outdoors to see what it looks like from the ground.
On clear days, you can also watch the change of seasons. Where the snow is melted, it's brown now, but you will see it go over to green as the trees leaf out. Orange hues will take over in the autumn during peak foliage.
Sometimes it all almost makes you want to hitch a ride on the satellite taking the photos.
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