Athens under snow

An unusual snowstorm has blanketed parts of Turkey and Greece, causing power cuts and chaos on the roads and flight cancellations. These two satellite images, from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, show Athens: the image on the left was captured on 25 January and the image on the right is from 20 January. Just five days apart, the difference that this severe Mediterranean snowstorm has made to the Greek capital is clear to see. Heavy snow fell here for more than 12 hours on 24 January, leaving thousands of motorists stranded on the Attiki Odos motorway, with those not rescued having to cope with temperatures as low as –14°C as night fell. The Greek government declared a two-day public holiday after the snowstorm.

The storm has also caused similar chaos in Turkey. And, remarkably beaches in Antalya have seen snow for the first time in 29 years.

Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission. Each satellite carries a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands. Together they cover all Earth’s land surfaces, large islands, inland and coastal waters every five days at the equator.