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Snowfall across the Deep South

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images [click to play animation]

GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images [click to play animation]

GOES-13 (GOES-East) Visible (0.63 µm) images (above) showed a broad swath of snow cover from Louisiana to Virginia on 09 December 2017. Some notable storm total accumulations included 6.5 inches at Kentwood, Louisiana, 7.0 inches at Bay Springs, Mississippi, 12.0 inches at Jacksonville, Alabama, 2.0 inches at Century, Florida, 18.0 inches at Mountain City, Georgia, 7.0 inches near Roan Mountain, Tennessee, and 25 inches at Mt. Mitchell State Park, North Carolina. Daily record snowfall accumulations included a Trace at New Orleans, Louisiana, 5.1 inches at Jackson, Mississippi and 1 inch at Mobile, Alabama.

A closer view of GOES-13 visible images (below) showed the band of snow cover across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Much of the the snow melted quickly, due to warm ground temperatures and a full day of sun.

GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images, with station identifiers plotted in yellow [click to play animation]

GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images, with hourly surface reports plotted in yellow [click to play animation]

A more detailed view of the snow cover was provided by 250-meter resolution Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images from the SSEC MODIS Direct Broadcast site (below). Note that snow cover was evident all the way to the Gulf Coast at Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana early in the day.

Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color RGB images of the central Gulf Coast region [click to enlarge]

Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color images of the central Gulf Coast region [click to enlarge]

Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color RGB images, centered over Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana [click to enlarge]

Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color RGB images, centered over Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana [click to enlarge]

Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color images, centered over New Orleans, Louisiana [click to enlarge]

Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color images, centered over New Orleans, Louisiana [click to enlarge]

Terra MODIS true-color image, centered over Atlanta, Georgia [click to enlarge]

Terra MODIS true-color image, centered over Atlanta, Georgia [click to enlarge]

It is interesting to note that with the aid of reflected moonlight — the Moon was in the Waning Gibbous phase, at 59% of Full — the Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) was able to detect the area of deeper snow cover across southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi at 0741 UTC or 1:41 AM local time; this snow cover was then seen during the following morning on GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) imagery at 1440 UTC or 8:40 AM local time (below). A VIIRS instrument is part of the payload on the recently-launched JPSS-1/NOAA-20 satellite.

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) and GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images [click to enlarge]

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day/Night Band (0.7 µm) and GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) images [click to enlarge]

Categories: Aqua, GOES-13, MODIS, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Suomi NPP, VIIRS, Winter weather