This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image from 21 November 2024 captures the first snow of the season over Denmark and southern Sweden.
Zoom in to explore this image at its full 10 m resolution or click on the circles to learn more.
The image highlights a white blanket of snow over most of Denmark (on the left) and southern Sweden (on the right), while patches of brown and green show areas that remained free of snow.
Different sized water bodies, visible in black, speckle the flat terrain across both countries. Notably, Arresø, Denmark’s largest lake, in the top left corner, appears green. This colouration is likely due to a combination of factors, including shallow depth and algal growth.
Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, near the centre of the image, is almost snow-free. The city faces the Øresund Strait (the Sound) which divides Denmark and Sweden and links the Baltic Sea to the North Sea.
Zooming in, the 20 turbines of the Middelgrunden offshore wind farm can be seen off the coast of Copenhagen harbour. The wind farm is one of the largest ever built and appears as a 3.4-km-long string of pearls in the dark water of the Strait.
The snow-free island visible to the east of Amager is Saltholm, which translates as Salt Islet, and the structure to the southwest is the artificial island of Peberholm or Pepper Islet.
Peberholm was built as part of the Øresund Bridge, a combined bridge-tunnel across the Strait that connects Copenhagen with the city of Malmö on the west coast of Sweden. Although often visible from space, the bridge, in this image, is in shadow from the cloud above.
In fact, cloud dominates the bottom part of the image and shadow from the cloud is clear to see on the white snow, particularly in the southeastern edge of Sweden.
Northeast of Malmö, the city of Lund stands out in dark tones amidst the snow near the centre of the image. Surrounding the urban area, the geometric patterns of agricultural fields are apparent beneath the white cover of snow.