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Welcome once again to our Friday’s Food for Thought post on got geoint? For anyone living in the mid-Atlantic region, you all have experienced an unusual Winter this year, marked by several snow storms — some being very being pretty massive. And, a major snow storm is predicted to hit this weekend, and the masses are being whipped up into a frenzy; the shelves at stores are being cleared out by hoarding consumers, Washington DC has already declared a State of Emergency,” and Arlington County executives told citizens to “shelter in place” for up to five days with supplies of nonperishable food, flashlights and extra batteries. What? Is this the end of the world as we know it (more on that)? For those of us who grew up in New England and the snow-prone states like Michigan and Minnesota, we can’t help but get a chuckle out of this mass hysteria. Happy Friday!

D.C. Declares State of Emergency Ahead of Winter Storm
D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty has declared a state of emergency Friday ahead of what’s promising to be the worst winter storm the District has seen in recent years. Friday’s declaration goes into effect at 9:30 a.m. responding to a storm that could bring high winds and up to 20 inches of snow to the region. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the Washington area from 10 a.m. Friday to 10 p.m. Saturday. Accumulations of 18 to 24 inches of snow are expected. Wow…sometimes we know that the weatherman gets it wrong. Not this time, we have GEOINT on our side…check out this satellite image of the storm.

Google Teams With NOAA to Make Better Ocean Visualizations
In keeping with this weather-related FFT post, data from the depths could get a lot less murky soon, thanks to a new partnership announced by Google and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA will provide data from its various ocean-science programs and Google will build tools to visualize that information, the two organizations announced Tuesday. The deal extends a collaboration that began when Google built NOAA’s underwater topography into Google Earth. The two entities have continued to work together on other projects, such as incorporating satellite measurements on coral-reef bleaching. Read more here.

Weather and Environmental Monitoring Satellites
Many of us take for granted the satellite images of weather patterns provided by the folks on The Weather Channel, as well as your local news. But, the reality is that there needs to be a solid infrastructure of satellites in place to provide this data to the news media, which feeds to us. How does it work? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Air Force, manages and operates fleets of weather and environmental monitoring satellites. So, when you watch your local newscaster present the weather forecast, you are seeing imagery from NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES. GOES orbit 35,800 km (22,300 miles) above the Earth’s equator at speeds equal to Earth’s rotation, which maintain their positions relative to Earth. Pretty cool, right? Read more here. And, check out NOAA’s National Snow Analysis maps here.

How Snow is Made
Snowflakes are extremely beautiful objects and it is amazing that such patterns form randomly. However, that is just how they form. As you probably know, a cloud is just water vapor (steam, if you like), and is composed of very tiny water drops. Now, because the cloud is high in the sky, where the air is thin, these water droplets get cold, below the freezing point of water. It turns out that absolutely pure water won’t freeze by itself, even if you get below 32 degrees F, or 0 degrees C (though it will freeze on its own if you get it extremely cold). Instead, the water drops need to stick to something else, like a particle of dust. This is called a “seed”. Only then does the water droplet freeze. Once this has happened, other water droplets will stick to the newly made ice-crystal, and also freeze, making it larger. Depending on the conditions, different shaped crystals will grow. In general, we see that snowflakes have a six-sided symmetry. This is because of the shape of a water molecule (two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom stuck together), the angle between the two hydrogen atoms is about 120 degrees. This is also the angle between two sides of a regular hexagon (six-sided figure where all the sides are the same length). So in a sense, water molecules like to “fit together” in six-sided shapes. However, the rest of the snowflake’s shape is determined by the “growing” conditions and the shape of the seed. So every snowflake is different, and beautiful. Pretty cool. Read more here.

Seven Snow Games for Kids
Rather than being sucked into the mass panic about the storm, why not embrace it? The kids will be out of school…yes, we know this can be VERY challenging, but you may as well get them outdoors. And, we found this web site, that highlights seven fun games to play in the snow. These games include powder puff football, rope tow and “Flag in a Snow Stack.” What’s that? Read more here. Oh, and if you are a young professional, you can always walk to the one bar that is open, or play a marathon session of poker? So, the big takeaway – enjoy the snow and the free time. Oh wait, we are all connected remotely to the office (via crackberrys and WiFi). So, scratch that…head to your home office right now and get to work!

It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Again, it was almost too easy to come up with a song that fits the mood of the mid-Atlantic region right now. While the mass hysteria and feeding frenzy and the grocery stores begins, it makes us wonder…is it the end of the world? People are sure acting that way. Little did Michael Stipe and crew every realize that their 1988 classic “It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” would end up in a blog about geospatial intelligence. Anything is possible. We hope you enjoy this live clip.

Happy Friday!