{"id":17479,"date":"2015-01-01T23:27:22","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T23:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=17479"},"modified":"2015-01-03T06:33:28","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T06:33:28","slug":"rare-low-elevation-snowfall-in-the-eastern-mojave-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/17479","title":{"rendered":"Rare low-elevation snowfall in the eastern Mojave Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/150101_2033z_modis_visible_rgb_snowcover_Southwest_US_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/150101_2033z_modis_visible_rgb_snowcover_Southwest_US_anim.gif\" alt=\"Aqua MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible channel image and False-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images\" width=\"480\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aqua MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible channel image and False-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A cold storm system moving through the Southwest US on <a title=\"31 December 2014 daily weather map\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/dailywxmap\/index_20141231.html\"><strong>31 December 2014<\/strong><\/a> produced significant snowfall in many of the higher-elevation mountain ranges of California, Baja California, Nevada, and Arizona <em>(up to 20 inches at Mountainaire AZ),<\/em> but also left lighter amounts of snowfall at some low-elevation locations of the eastern Mojave Desert where snowfall is considered to be quite rare (<a title=\"NWS Las Vegas Public Information Statement\" href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/150101_kvef_pns.text\"><strong>NWS Las Vegas Public Information Statement<\/strong><\/a>) | <a title=\"Event Summary\" href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/ad9tRFT8cH\"><strong>Event\u00a0 Summary<\/strong><\/a>). This event marked the first time that snowfall had been recorded during the month of December at Needles, California.<\/p>\n<p>As clouds began to clear over the region on the following day (<a title=\"01 January 2015 daily weather map\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/dailywxmap\/index_20150101.html\"><strong>01 January 2015<\/strong><\/a>), areas which still had snow on the ground could be seen using satellite imagery. On a comparison of Aqua MODIS 0.65 \u00b5m visible channel and false-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images at 20:33 UTC or 1:33 PM local time <em><strong>(above),<\/strong><\/em> snow cover that appeared as shades of white on the visible image also appeared as darker shades of red on the RGB image.<\/p>\n<p>As the day progressed, the sun had the effect of melting the lighter amounts of snow cover, as seen on GOES-15 <em>(GOES-West)<\/em> 0.63 \u00b5m visible channel images <em><strong>(below; click image to play animation)<\/strong><\/em>. However, due to the presence of the unusually cold air mass, new records for coldest 01 January daily maximum temperature were set for Phoenix (46\u00baF) and Tucson (41\u00baF).<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a class=\"thumbnail\" href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/150101_goes15_visible_Southwest_US_snow_cover_anim.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2015\/01\/150101_G15_VIS_MOHAVE_SNOW_19.GIF\" alt=\"GOES-15 0.63 \u00b5m visible channel images (click to play animation)\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-15 0.63 \u00b5m visible channel images (click to play animation)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A cold storm system moving through the Southwest US on 31 December 2014 produced significant snowfall in many of the higher-elevation mountain ranges of California, Baja California, Nevada, and Arizona (up to 20 inches at Mountainaire AZ), but also left lighter amounts of snowfall at some low-elevation locations of the eastern Mojave Desert where snowfall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":17483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,12,45,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goes-15","category-modis","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-winter-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17479"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17491,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17479\/revisions\/17491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}