This week’s image was taken earlier this week over New Mexico and Texas.
This image shows the difficulty in looking at one image and determining cloud cover. A bunch of this image is snow cover, not clouds. If you were to loop this image, the clouds are moving west to east, and you can see that motion. Even that is not the entire story. For example, there can be a cloud that becomes trapped over a mountain top, where upslope flow keeps it growing, but then mixing out on the leeward side. It will appear as a stationary, white reflection, and can be mistaken for snow- especially on a mountaintop, where snow lingers for longer. Fog also tends to remain stationary until it mixes out. That is why satellite analysis must be performed carefully.
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Source:
College of DuPage – SATRAD
