Major Winter Storm Heads To East Coast As Seen From Space

First Posted: Mar 14, 2017 04:10 AM EDT

NASA and NOAA satellites detected a major winter storm heading toward the U.S. East Coast on March 13 and March 14. The agencies are monitoring the region with many satellites.

Winter storm madness - Satellites tracking a storm expected to bring large snowfall totals to the U.S. East Coast: https://t.co/cOWLeID10p pic.twitter.com/2SYy5nDdre

— NASA (@NASA) March 14, 2017

The National Weather Service forecasts that a low-pressure system traversing the Midwest states and the Ohio valley will fuse with another low-pressure system off the southeast coast of the U.S. This will trigger large snowfalls from the Mid-Atlantic to New England, according to EurekAlert.

The forecasters from the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center (WPC) said that there will be a strong northeaster that will develop near the coast and will cause a late-season snowstorm from the central Appalachians to New England. This includes several major cities in the northeast U.S.

Meanwhile, there will be extreme snowfall from the northern Middle Atlantic to southern New England. It is expected that this will be 12 to 18 inches with localized amounts up to 2 feet. The WPC also stated that heavy winds will be experienced, which might cause uprooting trees and power outages. Areas from southern New Jersey to the Carolinas will experience more than an inch of rain.

The satellites used by NASA include the Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-East (Geostationary Operational Environmental-East). The Aqua satellite captured the storm indicating the cloud top and ground temperatures. NASA stated that as the clouds get higher, they become colder and could intensify the storm.

Meanwhile, the GOES-East satellite gave information about the infrared and visible wavelengths indicating the path of the low-pressure system. NASA has produced an animation using this gathered data between March 11 and March 13. The animation was transformed onto a true-color image of the ground and ocean, which came from the data from MODIS or the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, according to Space.com.