August 27, 2021 - Snow in the Andes

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Snow in the Andes
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A blanket of fresh snow draped across the Andes Mountains of Central
Chile and Argentina in late August 2021, bringing relief to a
drought-stricken region. On August 2, the European Union’s Copernicus
website ran a story illustrating severe snow deficit across parts of
the Andes and quoted researchers at the University of Santiago, Chile
who said that in June the Andes had a snow deficit of about 60 percent
compared to the average for the period.

As late as August 13, images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite showed a
similar sight in the Central Andes—notably sparse snow cover. Clouds
rolled over the region on August 14, and from August 15 -21 extremely
heavy cloud that concealed a significant winter storm blanketed the
mountains as well as much of coastal Chile and western Argentina. On
August 22, as the clouds rolled away and skies cleared, a broad blanket
of white coated the Central Andes.

On August 24, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of a late
winter day across the Central Andes. An area of gray pixels on the west
side of the snow-covered mountains marks the town of Santiago, Chile.
Measured from just east of the city, the newly-fallen snow stretches 66
miles (106 km) to reach into Argentina on the eastern side of the
Andes.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 8/24/2021
Resolutions: 1km (683.3 KB), 500m (1.7 MB), 250m (1.2 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-08-27

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