Snowstorm from space: The NASA photo of the East Coast, from 200 miles up

OPINION:

The Siberian Express, the Arctic blast, the polar vortex, Winter Storm Pandora — even weathermen are running out of descriptions for the winter weather now gripping a big chunk of the U.S. And now we know how big and relentless it is, courtesy of a NASA satellite photo released Saturday, from a satellite 200 miles above Earth. The space agency’s official words: “Looks like the states have been sitting in a freezer.” Indeed.

The image of the Mid-Atlantic states is from Terra, a satellite in a “circular sun-synchronous polar orbit,” NASA explains, that takes it from north to south on the daylight side of the Earth every 99 minutes. The satellite carries instruments from the United States, Japan, and Canada; the photo itself was snapped by the satellite on Friday.

At least 500 daily record lows have been broken during the storm, according to NOAA. And at least three all-time record lows have been set as a frigid air mass with origins in Siberia continues to grip the central and eastern United States with dangerously cold conditions, with temperatures into the 30s below zero as far south as Kentucky, reports the Weather Channel.

The winter weather has been fatal: Hypothermia has been blamed for the deaths of at least 22 people, the channel noted on Sunday. The toll includes 11 people in Tennessee, six in Pennsylvania, two in Illinois and one each in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Several other deaths suspected of being related to the cold are still being investigated.

“This week ranks among the most intense arctic outbreaks so far in the 21st century for the eastern U.S., and it is certainly one of the most impressively cold air masses we’ve seen this late in the winter season, coming only a month before the spring equinox,” says weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen.