Dusting the March Landscape

摘要

March 2020 closed out the month as a snowy time for several locations around the United States, including the Great Lakes "snow machine" region.The term snow machine refers to the notoriously heavy lake effect snows- regional snow bands that develop over and downwind of the Great Lakes, blanketing the eastern and southern shores with deep snow. There are normally several lake effect snow events every winter season. Figure 1 was captured by satellite on March 1, using the NASA MODIS true-color sensor. It shows the barren, late-winter landscape (billions of leafless trees in forests and vegetation-sparse valleys). Like the ridges of a fingerprint, note the curving crests and valleys of the Appalachians. Also shown is snow cover, particularly to the east of Lake Erie across northeastern Pennsylvania and much of upstate New York.The cloud-free Finger Lakes in central New York stand out in stark relief to the snow.