NOAA satellites show subtle details over the Upper Midwest Tuesday

It’s been a quiet weather day across the Upper Midwest. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening in the atmosphere.

Tuesday’s NOAA satellite imagery shows several features at work across the Upper Midwest. The Duluth NWS office sent out an interesting tweet highlighting some of the items picked up by weather satellites Tuesday.

The image below shows lake-effect clouds and snow, snow cover from Monday’s snow shot between the Twin Cities and Duluth, and differences between land and water.

Here’s a closer look at the lake effect cloud and snow shower plume emanating from Lower Red Lake with NASA’s MODIS staellties’s 250-meter resolution shot. The blotchy areas are from bad data spots on the image.

Another interesting feature is the southern extent of consistent snow cover which basically runs into the northern edge of the Twin Cities. Notice how sharp the contrast is between the snow cover and the still unfrozen Lake Mille Lacs.

It’s amazing how far weather satellites have advanced since the launch of the first weather satellite in 1960. If I only had one forecast tool, it would be a weather satellite.