File:Northeastern United States (MODIS 2019-06-27).jpg

English: After a rain-filled spring, the opening days summer of 2019 have turned hot and sunny over much of the Northeastern United States. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite took advantage of the cloud-free skies to acquire a broad true-color image of the region on June 23, 2019.

Some of the major features of this region are easily identifiable in this image, despite the smoke and haze in the skies, some of which originated in the wildfires of far northwestern Canada. From the north moving south along the Atlantic Ocean, three major features are Long Island, the Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake Bay. A long gray line, spiked with gray smudges lies inland of and roughly parallel to the Atlantic Coast marks the man-made structures along Interstate 95, a major traffic artery along heavily populated cities. The large, light gray area in the north, across the Long Island Sound and north of Long Island is the metro area of Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts, adjacent to Long Island, represents the New York Metro Area. Following the interstate south, other major cities include: the New York Metro Area; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; and the District of Columbia (Washington, DC).

Moving inland the undulating folds of the Appalachian Mountains curve from the northeast to the southwest. Dark green in the north marks areas of heavy vegetation, including forests in the mountains of New England. A series of parallel lakes marks the Finger Lakes of New York, which lie to the south of Lake Ontario. Toronto, Canada sits on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, which flows north-westward through Canada after forming part of the boundary between the United States and Canada. Southwest of Lake Ontario is Lake Erie. A part of Lake Huron sits in the far northwest of the image.