This is what the East Coast blizzard looks like from space

The massive winter storm set to hit the East Coast this weekend appears to be a behemoth in satellite imagery shared by NASA.

Thus, OLR provides a satellite-eye view of clouds from storm systems around the globe, including the developing blizzard across the eastern United States. Snowfall may approach two feet for some locations, including the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. metro areas.

One of NASA’s newest Earth observation satellites, the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite, which launched in 2014, has been regularly monitoring the amount of rainfall from the winter storm. NOAA manages GOES satellites, and the project creates imagery and animations using the GOES satellite data. The National Weather Service said “This latter feature takes over and becomes a dominant force in setting up heavy snow bands over the Mid-Atlantic and very gusty winds”.

A newly released NASA video shows the storm, which is now expected to dump 18 to 30 inches of snow on Washington, D.C., alone, moving across the country and up the coast from January 20 to January 22.

The impacts from the storm stretch from the Ozark Mountains to the Mid-Atlantic.

The storm will likely cause travel delays, airport closures, and unsafe conditions. “Heavy snow and wind will also slam southern New England”.

“Any risk of tornadoes is pretty low, but it’s not zero”, said Robert Molleda, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Miami office. Significant icing is also expected in portions of Kentucky and North Carolina.

This visible image from NOAA’s GOES-East satellite at 1830 UTC (1:30 p.m. EST) shows the major winter storm now affecting the U.S. East coast.