NASA MODIS Image of the Day: March 12, 2011 – Mid-Atlantic United States
The skies over the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States were clear on March 3, 2011, allowing the Moderate Resolution Imagine Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite to capture this true-color image of the tan winter land sandwiched between white swaths of snow and clouds.
On the northern coastline, the arm-shaped peninsula of Cape Cod, Massachusetts projects into the blue Atlantic Ocean, and is surrounded by greenish swirls of sediment and phytoplankton.
Southward the large island is Long Island, New York. The city of New York, the most populous city in the United States, lies at the heart of the large gray smudge near the western tip of Long Island and also covers Manhattan and Staten Island. The spreading gray surrounding it is the New York Metropolitan Area, a tri-state area that is considered to be one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. Following the coastline south, the Delaware River can be seen flowing into the shallow, silt-filled Delaware Bay. The Chesapeake Bay can be seen near the bottom of the image. Baltimore lies on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and is marked by a gray circle. To the southwest a smaller gray circle marks Washington, DC, the capital of the United States. To the west, the long dark tan parallel lines mark the Appalachian Mountain Range. At the top of the image, snow covers New York State and the New England region. The deep blue of Lake Ontario stands out in sharp contrast to the frosted land. The Finger Lakes of New York snake along the snowfields to the south of the Lake Ontario. At the western (left) edge of the image, wispy white clouds float over the landscape, probably the leading edge of a system that brought precipitation to the Mid-Atlantic states on March 6, 2011.
