Heavy snow caused chaos in the usually temperate Eastern Mediterranean starting on January 22, 2004 and continuing through January 25. Powerful storms swept through Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Turkey. Snow fell in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and parts of Italy, including Rome. The hardest hit by the storm was Turkey, where the weather has been blamed for 12 deaths, including those of two boys who froze to death traveling between home and school. The storm closed roads and knocked out power throughout much of the Eastern Mediterranean.
As the clouds moved out of the area on January 27, 2004, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite caught this unusual image of Western Turkey covered in snow. Local media reports say that Istanbul received the equivalent of a month’s precipitation in 24 hours.
The high-resolution image provided above has a resolution of 500 meters per pixel. The image is available in additional resolutions, including MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.
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Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
