Frosty temperatures pressed much of the country this week, thanks to Arctic temperatures ushered in by the polar vortex.
The deep freeze claimed at least 21 lives, suspended operations at General Motors plants, delayed some Amazon deliveries and grounded more than 1,500 flights.
It was a remarkable week of weather on the ground, and it looks that way from space too: Images captured by NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are equal parts humbling and awe-inspiring.
The satellite image embedded above, from the NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory, shows rows of clouds over the Great Lakes. The image was taken on Sunday, Jan. 27.
"When extremely cold air moves over the unfrozen, relatively warmer lake water, columns of heated air begin to rise off the lake surface. As the rising, warmer air hits the cold air above it, the moisture condenses into cumulus clouds, then cools and sinks on either side," the NOAA explains about the image in a written statement. "This rising and sinking motion creates parallel cylinders of rotating air that line up in the direction of the prevailing wind...."
"You can almost feel that cold in this natural-color image, acquired on January 27, 2019," NASA's website says about the image below. "Cloud streets and lake-effect snow stretch across the scene, as frigid Arctic winds blew over the Great Lakes."
Photo credit: NASA Earth Observatory
A gif NOAA tweeted Thursday shows snow, clouds and ice clouds moving across the Great Lakes.
And another from Wednesday shows the snow as the sun comes up.
The cold temperatures are visible in this visual model from NASA's Earth Observatory. The image represents temperature by color at 4 a.m. EST on Jan. 29 at 6.5 feet above the ground, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory.
