 Discerning between high albedo surfaces like clouds and snow cover can sometimes be tricky with standard visible imagery. We're left to track the movement of clouds on loops, or identify snow cover by picking out surface features with lower albedo like unfrozen bodies of water, or heavily forested areas. Now let's take a different, more colorful look at this loop. This loop was created by expanding beyond just the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This particular satellite product is created by combining data collected at three different wavelengths. One in the visible portion of the spectrum, one just outside the visible portion in the near infrared, and one in the infrared. By assigning different colors to the information gathered at each wavelength, snow cover and clouds appear differently, which makes it easier to discern between them. On this particular image, the visible channel is detecting the albedo of various objects, but instead of white, it's displayed in a green shading. The near infrared channel is shaded blue and is useful for distinguishing clouds composed mainly of liquid drops from those composed of ice crystals. Finally, the infrared channel is shaded red and relates to temperature of the object being detected. When combining all this information into one image, areas of snow cover show up in green, while clouds tend to show up in various other shades depending on how cold their tops are and whether they're composed mainly of liquid or ice. These Sears clouds advancing into Pennsylvania and West Virginia from the west appear sort of pinkish because they're very high in cold and are composed of ice crystals. Meanwhile, most of these clouds out over the Atlantic are cyan colored because they are lower and composed of liquid drops. While exact shadings can vary based on several factors, using multiple wavelengths can give us more insights than just using one channel. And this type of imagery has a number of applications in addition to just distinguishing between snow cover and clouds. It can be useful for studying growing cumulus clouds as they become increasingly composed of ice and can be used to track heavy snow squalls in areas that have poor radar coverage, among other things.