English: On April 30, 2015 New Zealand�s Met Service predicted the arrival of clear, sunny days as well as star-filled, chilly nights. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA�s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on that same day, as New Zealand began to emerge from several days of windy weather, which had brought gales and storms to the southern and eastern coasts. In this image, the have clouds parted over New Zealand�s North Island, leaving only small �popcorn� clouds over the higher elevations of the autumn landscape. To the south, South Island remains partially hidden underneath a significant cloud cover. On the northwest coast of South Island, a bank of low cloud (fog) reaches to the lower rises of the Southern Alps. The highest elevations of the Southern Alps are covered with a blanket of snow. The first snowfalls of the season usually occur in early April, although the mountains are snow-capped year-round.