Snow-Covered Iceland, Seen from Satellite

Snow-covered Iceland with mostly clear skies provided a good opportunity for a satellite image on March 1, when NASA’s Terra, the flagship Earth observing satellite, crossed Iceland 705 km above the Earth’s surface. The picture is a so-called MODIS image, specifically focusing on vegetation, snow and ice.

Clouds covered the north shore of the country, and there were a few clouds in the south as well.

The past month was exceptionally stormy, bringing us heavy snow again and again, causing repeated road closures, requiring endless snow removal, and testing the patience of the nation. Still, it is not the worst winter in terms of weather in recent years.

Meteorologist Trausti Jónsson reminds us that the winter of 2019-2020 was just as bad, not to mention that of 2014-2015, dubbed the Winter of Stormy Weather, Morgunblaðið reports.

Luckily, as soon as the sun comes out, we’re quick to forget stormy days of the past. Morgunblaðið quotes Sigurður Grétar Sigurðsson, church minister, who puts it this way:

“Icelanders are said to have a bad memory when it comes to weather. We can survive long periods of bad weather, but as soon as the days get lighter and the good weather returns, it seems like all that happened earlier has been forgotten and is preserved in annals alone.”