Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/blizzard-alley
blizzard-alley·dataset

America's 'Blizzard Alley' Region

Blizzard Alley
atmosphere NASA VEDA COG
In plain English

What it measures. A map outlining the part of the United States nicknamed Blizzard Alley, where at least 10 to 20 blizzards have struck since 1950, and eastern North Dakota has seen 50 to 100 or more.

How it's made. Made as a single-value map layer marking the boundaries of this blizzard-prone region.

How & where you'd use it. Helps illustrate where blizzards concentrate, supporting public awareness and winter-storm planning.

What's measured

blizzardalley

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1950-01-01 → 1950-01-01
  • Spatial extent-105.231, 36.872, -89.524, 49.663
  • FormatsCOG

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

Single value raster displaying the region of the USA known as Blizzard Alley, where at least 10-20 blizzards have occurred since 1950. Eastern North Dakota seen 50-100+ in the same time period.

Get the data

veda_access.py
# NASA VEDA — open STAC API, anonymous (cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://openveda.cloud/api/stac")
col = cat.get_collection("blizzard-alley")
items = list(col.get_items())          # browse the analysis-ready COGs
# open an asset with rioxarray:
# import rioxarray; da = rioxarray.open_rasterio(items[0].assets["cog_default"].href)
NASA VEDA is an open STAC catalog — browse and stream the cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs anonymously (no login).