Snowzilla’s east coast blast was described as a “rare thunderstorm”, Scott Kelly on the station and in the Moon from Suomi Satellite
NEW JERSEY – NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured a rare and spectacular ‘thundersnow’ from space Snowzilla’s blast hit much of the US East Coast this weekend, two feet or more of crippling snow from the nations capital to New York and beyond.
At the same time, NASA-NOAA Finland’s nuclear power plant’s earth-orbiting satellite almost simultaneously captured an eerie image of the east coast bathed in moonlight as the 2016 snowstorm hit more than 85 million residents in 20 states on the east coast.
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) captured a Finnish nuclear power plant satellite image of a massive winter storm system pummeling the eastern United States on January 23 at 2:15 a.m. EST.
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Kelly captured a spectacular “thundersnow” photo Saturday, Jan. 23, aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that approached or set snowfall accumulation records for many major metropolitan areas from the Mid-Atlantic to the Northeast Corridor.
“Rare #thundersnow seen from @Space_Station in #blizzard2016! #Snowzilla #snowmaggedon2016,” Kelly tweeted with the possible shot on 01/23/2016.
Because from moment to moment the “rare thunder snow” disappeared from view – see the comparison photos above and below.
“Massive #blizzardcover #EastCoast clearly visible from @Space_Station! Stay safe! #blizzard2016,” Kelly tweeted with a photo earlier Saturday of a similar view.
Kelly has just passed the 300th day of his historic “1 Year ISS Mission” at the outpost, conducting hundreds of experiments aimed at paving the way for multi-year expeditions to the Red Planet.
The satellite image of the Finnish nuclear power plant was adapted using VIIRS’s “day-night band”, which detects weak light signals such as city lights, moonlight, aurora borealis and northern lights. In the image, the clouds are illuminated by an almost full moon from above and the lights of the densely populated east coast from below. The cloud cover obscures the city lights in places .”
The record high tides caused widespread flooding, beach erosion and property destruction along a large portion of the Jersey Shore. Some areas suffered catastrophic destruction even worse than Hurricane Sandy.
Many airports were closed and are only slowly reopening, wreaking havoc on the air transport system. More than 13,000 flights have been canceled so far since Friday, January 22.
The storm lasted until Sunday, January 24, causing at least 45 deaths.
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