NASA MODIS Image of the Day: December 26, 2007 – Snow, Fog, and Low Clouds in Western Europe
Capped with silvery white snow, the Alps arc gracefully across northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and southern Germany and France in these images.
The main image is false color.
The snow appears red, making it easier to distinguish from clouds. If you move your mouse over the image, you will see a secondary one, which shows the same scene in true color. The MODIS on the Terra satellite captured this image on December 20, 2007. Though it’s hard to tell the difference, some of the clouds in the Alps are actually fog. If you look closely, you’ll see that the fingers of the clouds heading south towards Italy follow the valleys in the Alps very closely, unlike the clouds in the northern part of the image. This same is true of some of the other banks of clouds – they follow the terrain closely, and so are more likely fog than clouds. You may wish to compare the larger false color images (available via the links on the right) to this larger version of the true color image.
