Even winter's icy grip cannot contain the lush green hues of Ireland in this January 2003 photo from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA's Terra spacecraft.

The rugged cliffs that mark the island’s west coast are showing their red-brown rocky surface, but the low-lying interior region is still wearing the island’s signature green. Ireland’s largest city, Dublin, makes a purplish-gray patch peeking out from the clouds about halfway down the east coast. Belfast is more clearly visible on the coast in the northeast, due east of large Lake Neagh. One Ireland’s few other large cities, Cork, is located at the mouth of the Lee River, at the mid-point of the southern shoreline.