MODIS false color image (bands 7, 2, 1) of the Northeast United States, 4 April 2005.
The first weekend in April brought snows and heavy rains to the United States Northeast. This false-color Terra MODIS image from April 4, 2005 shows a bright blue stripe of snow descending through Canada and New York into Ohio, Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland and West Virginia. The Appalachian Range, which makes a series of brown folds through these states, is mostly snow-free, and were the line at which the winter storm dumped heavy rains instead of snow. As the image shows, west and north of the Appalachians, snow was predominant, while to the east and south the rains were so intense in some places that they caused floods. Residents were evacuated from their homes in parts of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Text and image courtesy of NASA's MODIS Land Rapid Response Team.