October 18, 2019 - Fall Colors in eastern Canada

Fall Colors in eastern Canada

As the hours of daylight shorten and temperatures fall, autumn colors begin a dramatic sweep across North America. On October 11, 2019, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of the dramatic annual color change across eastern Canada.

Fall colors appear to be at or near their peak across much of Canada and approaching peak in the Adirondacks of New York State and in Vermont, in the United States. In the far north, evergreen conifers dominate the forests and these regions remain green, as do the conifers of the mixed forests in the south. Only the deciduous trees change to brilliant oranges, reds, and yellows prior to losing their leaves in preparation for winter’s chill.

To thoroughly enjoy the contrast between full-colored autumn forests and the same forests in summer foliage, a roll-over presentation of today's image and an image of the same area acquired by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite on July 7, 2019 is available HERE This comparison is provided by NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application, which provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now.”

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 10/11/2019
Resolutions: 1km (454.9 KB), 500m (1.2 MB), 250m (2.4 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC