Snow near Great Lakes

This image of snow in the Great Lakes region in the US was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission’s ocean and land colour instrument on 3 February 2021. While there are reports of record-low ice cover on the lakes this year, there has, nevertheless, been heavy snowfall across the Midwest and Great Lakes over the last few days. Snow has also hit the northeast US. It is thought that this winter’s polar vortex is currently sending extreme icy blasts of Arctic weather to some parts of the northern hemisphere. Scientists are using wind information from ESA’s Aeolus satellite to shed more light on the complex polar vortex phenomenon.