NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information
The two satellite-derived images above show the daily snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere (left map) and North America (right map) throughout December 2007. By clicking on the images, the advance of sea-ice across Hudson Bay and parts of the Arctic can be seen through the month as well as the snowstorms across eastern Europe, Kazakhstan, northeast China, and the Northeast, Midwest and Great Plains areas of the U.S. in December.
The map to the left depicts the satellite-derived accumulated snow depth on December 17, illustrating a wide swath of heavy snow cover across the southern Great Plains through New England. A few days earlier, a large snow and ice storm on December 10-11 wreaked havoc across Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska. It knocked out power to over 600,000 Oklahoma residents and indirectly caused over twenty fatalities in that state alone, prompting the governor to declare the ice storm the worst in Oklahoma history. The same system later brought heavy amounts of snow to the Northeast, slamming Boston with up to ten inches (25.4 cm) of snow during the evening rush hour on December 13, stranding commuters in their cars for as long as six hours for normally short commutes.
As many residents began to clear out from the last storm, another strong upper-level system moved across the Central U.S. through New England December 15-17, bringing ice, sleet, damaging winds, and as much as eighteen inches of snow in some areas. Detroit, MI, received nine inches (22.9 cm) of snow, tying it as the 9th biggest December snowstorm on record. By the 17th, more snow (19.6 inches/49.8 cm) fell in Boston, MA so far this snow season than all of last year (17.1 inches/43.4 cm). The weekend timing of the storm minimized the effects of the wintry blast, although it caused the cancellation or delay of hundreds of flights from Chicago to Boston.
More information on December severe winter weather can also be found on NCDC's Hazards page.