December 25, 2014
Unusual blizzard conditions turned some Hawaiian summits white with snow for Christmas day. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image on December 25, 2014, when snow capped the Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii.
White areas around the volcanoes are primarily clouds. One way to better distinguish snow from clouds is with false-color imagery. In the false-color view of the scene here, snow is red and clouds are white.
References & Resources
- Capital Weather Gang, via The Washington Post (2014, December 23) White Christmas in Hawaii? Snow falls on Big Island peaks, Blizzard Warning issued. Accessed December 26, 2014.
- The Associated Press via U.S. News & World Report (2014, December 25) Snow-capped Summits Give Hawaii a White Christmas. Accessed December 26, 2014.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Kathryn Hansen.
