Heavy Snow in Korea as Seen from Space

The same wintery weather that caused the heaviest snowfall in Beijing in nearly six decades also caused the heaviest snowfall in Soul (Seoul) since meteorological surveys began there in 1937. A blizzard dropped more than 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) of snow on that city on January 3, 2010.

Heavy Snow in Korea as Seen from Space. Credit: NASA

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on January 3, 2010. Snow cover thins toward the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula, and actually appears relatively light in South Korea compared to parts of North Korea and China.

Cloud streets—clouds that look as if they have comb marks—appear over the Sea of Japan. They are similar to the cloud streets that formed over the snow-rimmed Bo Hai on January 4, 2010.