About Snow Cloud Metrics

Snow Cloud Metrics represents a collaboration between Computational Mountain Studies Group at University of Nevada-Reno, and the Geospatial Snow, Water, & Ice Resources Lab at Montana State University.

The idea came into fruition as a result of Eric Sproles trying to download monthly MODIS snow cover datasets on slower internet connections in Chile. This limitation slowed down work flows used in monthly to seasonal water forecasts.

Around the same time Ryan Crumley and Anne Nolin (then at Oregon State University) began to develop code that used Google Earth Engine and its data library to calculate snow cover metrics. After a couple of conversations the idea to use Google Earth Engine as a tool for generating global snow metrics led us to SnowCloudMetrics and its parallel project, SnowCloudHydro.

The snow cover data used in this project is the MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m (MOD10A1, Version 6) for 2001 - 2019. Specific details about this product can be found on the National Snow and Ice Data Center's website.

The initial coding to use Google Earth Engine as a means to analyze MODIS data was led by Eugene Mar. These efforts have been expanded upon by Ross Palomaki to enhance analysis and get Snow Cloud Metrics into this web interface.

SnowCloudMetrics is by no means a finished project and we will keep working to expand its functionality. If you have any constructive ideas please send them to app.snow.cloud <at> gmail dot com.