MODIS true color image of Lake Baikal on the 11th of December 2003.
Low layers of fog and cloud cover eastern Russia's Lake Baikal, shown here in this true-color Terra MODIS image from December 11, 2003. The surrounding landscape is dusted in snow, rendering the scene in shades of white and gray. Lake ice is beginning to form at the northernmost end of the lake and in a bay at the middle. Just northwest of the lake, bright white ribbon-like rivers meander through the lands north of Baikal, skirting the Stanovoye Mountains, and flow toward the northeast. These are the rivers Lena and Kirenga, which together form the greater Lena River and eventually empty into the Laptev Sea after skirting the Central Siberian Plateau.
Image and text courtesy of NASA's MODIS Land Rapid Response Team.