The surface albedo over the Yangtze Delta is derived from CH1 and CH2 data of NOAA-AVHRR. The comparison between the derived and the observed surface albedos shows that the retrieval method is reasonable. Moreover,a technique is presented to estimate the surface albedo at any time of a day by the use of the surface albedo at a single time. The influence of the solar altitude and surface conditions on the surface albedo is also investigated, indicating that they are in the same order. It is suggested that both factors must be included in the development of nowcasting and short-range numerical model.