NASA MODIS Image of the Day: December 4, 2011 – Southeastern United States
As the United States celebrated Thanksgiving Day, the clouds parted and allowed the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite to capture this true-color image which highlights the southeastern United States.
This image was captured at 18:45 UTC (1:45 pm Eastern Standard Time) on November 24, 2011.
In the northeast, a large bank of clouds covers Wisconsin (upper left corner), Michigan, Canada, Illinois (far left edge), Indiana, and Ohio, with the southeast edge of the cloudbank covering northern Kentucky and western West Virginia. A smaller circle of clouds hovers over central Pennsylvania. To the north and east of Pennsylvania, the skies over New York and New Jersey are cloud-free. A serpentine stripe of light and dark green marks the highest ridges of the Appalachian Mountain chain, which can be seen running from north to south through Pennsylvania, Maryland, eastern West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. Between Georgia and North Carolina lies South Carolina and in the far southern edge of the image Florida can be seen. Lake Erie lies in the upper left corner of the image, mostly hidden under clouds. The tan and green coloration of the water comes primarily from sediment, but may also indicate an algae bloom in the freshwater lake. Along the eastern coast similar tans and greens mark areas where sediment runs off the land into the waters. Some of the turquoise in these waters may be blooming phytoplankton. The northernmost large bay on the eastern coast of Delaware is the Delaware Bay and to the south the larger Chesapeake Bay can be seen. Both Bays are significantly filled with tan sediment. In the United States, Thanksgiving occurs on the fourth Thursday of November, and is a feast day to commemorate good harvest, the successful survival of the early colonies (especially Plymouth) and of the fellowship between the early settlers and the Native Americans who helped them survive the harsh winters by sharing food, providing seed and teaching the settlers to fish. While initial celebrations began in the 1620’s, the annual harvest festival became widespread in New England in the late 1660s, and in 1941 legislation was passed making Thanksgiving a federal holiday.
