The Mid-Atlantic States were entirely white on Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009, in the wake of a record-breaking snow storm. The storm deposited between 12 and 30 inches of snow in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. on Dec. 19, in accordance with the National Weather Service. For various locations, the snowfall totals broke records for the most snow to fall in a single December day.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite capture this view of the Chesapeake Bay region as the clouds were clearing on Dec. 20. The snow highlights the courses of the Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers from the Appalachian Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The ridges as well as valleys of the Appalachian Mountains are similarly highlighted. The forested peaks are darker than the snow-covered valleys.
The massive snow storm was a Nor’easter, a powerful snowstorm characterized by a strong low-pressure center that forms in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean and moves northward up the Eastern seaboard. In the Northern Hemisphere, winds flow in to the center of a low-pressure area in a counter-clockwise spiral, which means when the storm heads north, the leading winds come in off the ocean from the northeast.
The massive snow storm was a Nor’easter, a powerful snowstorm characterized by a strong low-pressure center that forms in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean and moves northward up the Eastern seaboard. In the Northern Hemisphere, winds flow in to the center of a low-pressure area in a counter-clockwise spiral, which means when the storm heads north, the leading winds come in off the ocean from the northeast.
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