The heaviest snow falls seen in the area for 16 years have hit central China in the second half of January. The lower course of Yangtse, one of the most populous areas of China, with big cities such as Shanghai and Nanjing suffered enormous damages to agriculture and cuts to road and rail link, which caused transport chaos.
The MODIS image acquired on January 31st shows most of eastern China, clear from clouds with a tract of Yangtse river going from Three Gorges dam (bottom left) to Shanghai, located south of the river mouth; the false colour image allows a better discrimination between snow (light blue) and clouds (white-rose).
Beijing area is not covered by snow and the air is unusually clean and transparent. Coastal waters of Yellow Sea are partly frozen.





Satellite: TERRA (NASA)
Sensor: MODIS
Spatial resolution: 500 m.
Data: NASA - GSFC