File:Western United States and Canada (MODIS 2017-06-01).jpg

English: On May 28, 2017, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured a true-color image of the western United States and Canada.

Black borderlines have been overlain on the image to mark boundaries between states and provinces. From north the south, the lands lying along the Pacific Ocean are: British Columbia, Canada and, in the United States, Washington, Oregon and California. The inland provinces of Canada are Alberta and Saskatchewan. The inland states captured in this image include parts of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The most prominent feature is the bright white snow that tops the highest peaks of various mountain ranges. In British Columbia, the Coast Range sits nearest the Pacific Ocean, and the snow-capped Rocky Mountains extend into the United States. Snow also sits on the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades. White clouds hang over the landscape – both mountains and plain – in the eastern part of the image. A large bank of cloud hangs over the Pacific Ocean, with fingers of fog (low cloud) intruding on the valleys and low-lying coastal lands from Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Canada), southward through southern California (United States).