This Is the Apocalyptic Storm Hitting the US Right Now

Get ready, because the snowpocalypse is back. This snow storm system is huge. NASA Goddard has released this amazing image, showing how it looks from space—bloody scary, that’s how.

The image was captured by the GOES-13 satellite, operated by NOAA. In this graphic, the red and pink areas is where the most intense action is. They say that this “massive winter storm affecting a large portion of great plains and midwest” is just getting worse:

A large swath of blizzard warnings, winter storm warnings, freezing rain advisories, winter weather advisories and winter storm watches are in effect, stretching from New Mexico and the Southern Plains northeastward through the Midwest and into the upper Mid-Atlantic and New England.

According to NOAA, the storm will hit really hard over Texas tonight, “and intensify rapidly as it moves northeast into the Ohio Valley Tuesday night and Wednesday, then eventually re-form off the mid-Atlantic or New England coast late Wednesday.”

In other words: Expect extreme travel disruption and lots of snow zombies over the next 48 hours.

Cancel or Rebook Your Flight for Free While the Massive Midwest Storm Looms

Want to get caught in an airport during a “multi-day, multi-region, potentially historic and destructive winter storm“? Thought so. Luckily, airlines are being extraordinarily lenient right now, and you can likely cancel or rebook for free.

Image via The Weather Channel.

More than 2,100 miles of the country may see a foot or more of snow this week, and as of last night, at least 3,000 flights had been canceled across the U.S. in preparation. Luckily, The Consumerist blog offers links to nearly every major airline’s storm-specific policy page. Southwest Airlines, for example, is allowing many customers to fly standby on any flight, up to 14 days from their original departure, while Delta is offering free re-books and delayed departure for those in any of about 20 cities.

If you had travel plans for this week, tell us what you’re doing, and how your carriers are treating you, in the comments.

Imagery Update – Week of January 31

The Google Earth and Maps Imagery team has just released another aerial and satellite imagery update!

January is the month of resolutions and NASA has one of the biggest: to take us into the next age of space flight. Below is a high-resolution aerial image captured in December of the LC39A launch pad at the Kennedy Space center, Cape Canaveral Florida. Here we can see the Space Shuttle’s primary and secondary fuel tanks being readied for one of the shuttle’s last planned missions (STS-133; the last mission for Discovery), set for launch on February 23. We’re looking forward to publishing our first imagery of the Space Shuttle’s replacement, the CST-100.

The LC39A launch pad, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida

I’m a geologist by training, and so I particularly enjoy publishing new imagery of Earth’s more spectacular features such as the volcanoes shown in the perspective view below. They are part of the 23 volcanoes that comprise the Kirishima Volcanic Group in Kyushu, Japan. This field is particularly cool because it contains many different types of volcanoes, including stratovolcanos, cones, maars, and shields. You can use Google Earth to fly around these active structures, including flying right into their calderas, many of which are filled with crater lakes.

Perspective view of the Kirishima volcanic field, Kyushu, Japan

Finally, with all the cotton candy and futuristic exhibits, who wouldn’t want to attend a World’s Fair? Although there is no World’s Fair going on right now, we can check out the sites of previous World’s Fairs such as the 1982 World’s Fair site in Knoxville Tennessee. Below is an aerial image of one of the last remaining attractions of this fair, The Sunsphere. The Sunsphere is a 266 ft high hexagonal steel truss structure, topped with a 75 ft gold-colored glass sphere that serves as an observation deck. It’s been re-opened to the public and also now includes private offices with spectacular views.

The Sunsphere structure, World’s Fair Park, Knoxville, TN

As always, these are but a few examples of the types of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:

USA:Champaign, IL; Lafayette, LA; Lakeland, FL; Knoxville, TN; Lexington, KY; Macon, GA; Palm Bay, FL; Sarasota, FL; Shreveport, LA; Springfield, MO; Toledo, OH

Spain: Catalunya (Catalonia)

Countries/Regions receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:

Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, North Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Macedonia (FRYOM), France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Lithuania, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, , Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank, Western Sahara

These updates are currently only available in Google Earth, but they’ll also be in Google Maps soon. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

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