Awesome Satellite View of Spring Snow Melt In Vermont/Northern New York.

On April 12 in this screen shot from a NWS Burlington
Vermont video, a satellite image shows bare
ground in the Champlain Valley and ice breaking up
in Lake Champlain, but much of the rest of the
region still buried under snow and ice.  n

The National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont today released a cool video showing the progression of early spring over most of Vermont, Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks of New York.

The view is via NOAA's MODIS visible satellite images, which can get down to pretty good detail in a relatively small area, like Vermont and northern New York.

The National Weather Service put images April 1, 12, 15 and 19 up in the video for comparison. They picked these days because skies were crystal clear, so no clouds were in the way of the view.

On April 1, everything is covered in snow except for a few evident bare patches in parts of the Champlain Valley.

By April 12, all of the Champlain Valley is clear of snow and ice is beginning to break up on Lake Champlain. Pretty much everyone else is snow covered. Things progress to Sunday, April 19, with snow only in the highest elevations, and no ice on Lake Champlain.

Things are beginning to backslide a little bit, temporarily of course.  Snow and sleet fell for a time this morning at mid and high elevations of New York and Vermont, though that had mostly changed to rain showers region wide by noon today.

Later this week and this weekend, a few inches of fresh snow might dust the mountains again as a chilly, unsettled spell of weather takes hold.

But soon enough, similar MODIS satellite images won't look so brown. Trees and fields will green up in another month or so, and the satellite images of Vermont on a clear day will be largely green instead of brown, as spring continues its unsteady advance toward the North Country.  

Here's the video: