While a winter storm brought sudden snow and power outages to parts of the U.S. Southeast on December 9, 2018, a break in the clouds that day revealed a wintry landscape around the Midwest and Great Lakes. Lingering from a previous snowfall, a band of snow reaches from Missouri to New York. Lake-effect clouds stretch across four of the Great Lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Ontario—while sediment and algae swirl in Lake Erie.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite acquired this natural-color image on December 9. The satellite passed overhead around 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time (18:30 Universal Time).

NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using VIIRS data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Text by Joshua Stevens.