The snow-covered Alps are featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission.

Heavy snowfall in the Alps has been recorded over the past weeks, with up to 3 m of snow recorded in some parts of the Austrian and Italian Alps. On 14 December, the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument onboard the Sentinel-3 mission acquired this image of snow cover and low cloud coverage around the Alps.

According to Eumetsat, the snow came in two bouts. The first occurred during the weekend of 5-6 December and was stronger, influencing the western part of the Alps, while the second, on 8 and 9 December, brought snow to central and eastern Alps, and was not as abundant as the first. The skies then cleared after 10 December, allowing this image to be captured.

The first bout of snow lead to road blocks, power outages throughout South Tyrol and avalanche warnings, according to Der Spiegel.

Just south of the Alps, the typical winter fog and haze can be seen over the Po Valley. The haze is most likely to be a mix of both fog and smog, trapped at the base of the Alps owing to both its topography and atmospheric conditions. Patches of snow can also be seen on the island of Corsica, Croatia and at the bottom of the Apennines in central Italy.

Sentinel-3 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. The mission is based on two identical satellites orbiting in constellation for optimum global coverage and data delivery.