File:Snow across the eastern United States (MODIS 2015-03-11).jpg

English: The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying aboard NASA�s Aqua satellite captured a true-color image of the frozen and snow-covered landscape of the eastern United States on February 27, 2015.

Bright white snow sweeps from Minnesota to Vermont in the northern tier of states, and from Canada to northern Louisiana. The heaviest snow cover is apparent in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and New York. Storm clouds remain hanging over the southern states as well as Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, where precipitation continued to fall. The deep freeze was apparent on the Great Lakes as well. As of February 27, Lake Erie was 95.9 percent covered in ice, while Lake Ontario was at 48.9 percent. Overall, the five Great Lakes combined were 84.1 percent ice covered, according to local reports.

The eastern half of the United States was trapped in a deep freeze for most of February 2015. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of records were set for daily low temperatures, and wave after wave of ice and snowstorms have hit the region. The coldest days of the year usually occur in January, yet February proved exceptional in many places. Bangor, Maine, is on course for its coldest month ever recorded, and Syracuse, New York, has had 20 days below zero (Fahrenheit), a new winter record. On February 23-24 alone, at least 67 temperature records fell. Montpelier, Vermont, dropped to -23�F; Glens Falls, New York, dipped to -26�F; and Columbus, Ohio, was at -11�F. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the infamous weather-predicting groundhog, touched -20�F.