Widespread snow from the Sierra Nevada to the Colorado Rockies snarled travel leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. As the holiday weekend wraps up, NASA has released satellite imagery showing just thousands of square miles coated in a blanket of white.
Read more below the image.
The winter weather conditions delayed flights and forced road closures starting last weekend and lasting up to Thanksgiving. Some of the snow totals from Saturday the 20th through Saturday the 27th include:
- Salt Lake City, Utah – 9.9 inches
- Pocatello, Idaho – 9.0 inches
- Boise, Idaho -5.0 inches
- Elko, Nevada – 8.4 inches
- Yakima, Washington – 6.2 inches
- Missoula, Montana – 8.4 inches
Much higher amounts were recorded in the higher elevations making for very happy ski resorts and skiers. Alpine Meadows near Lake Tahoe reported 8.5 feet of snow at mid-mountain. In Wyoming, Jackson Hole opened all of its runs on its opening day, the first time it has been able to do so in 45 years.
In western Colorado ski areas were very happy to receive the snow leading up to the busy holiday season with Steamboat having its best opening in 10 years. Loveland Ski Area reported nearly 3 feet of snow depth at mid-mountain.
The image released by NASA and taken by its Terra satellite show a wide swath of snow cover from Oregon across Nevada, Idaho and Utah to Colorado. Click on the image to the above left to view the full size, high resolution image.
From NASA:
In most of the western part of the United States, Thanksgiving Day came with a coating of snow. Ski resorts from California’s Lake Tahoe region to the Colorado Rockies reported several feet of snow from a storm system that passed through in the days before, bringing a welcome early opening to the ski season. Travelers throughout the West, however, did not share skiers’ enthusiasm for the weather. Winter weather advisories were causing flight delays and cancellations throughout the northwestern-most states. The same storm system that brought as six inches of snow to Utah and Idaho on November 23 also brought heavy snow to North Dakota and Minnesota the next day. Severe wind chill conditions were reported throughout the Great Plains on November 25 as well.
This image shows a portion of the western U.S. on November 25, 2010 (Thanksgiving Day). It was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. White snow decorates the ground from California’s Sierra range eastward throughout Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, ending at the front range of the Rockies in Colorado. Further north along the top edge of the image, the snow runs solidly from Oregon to Idaho and Wyoming off the northern and eastern edges of the image.