Where there is snow on the ground each day (Terra, 500 m)

In plain English

What it measures. Where snow covers the ground each day worldwide, plus how reflective that snow is (albedo), mapped at 500-meter detail.

How it's made. Derived from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, combining each day's swath observations into a daily global snow map projected onto a fine grid.

How & where you'd use it. Used for tracking seasonal snowpack, forecasting spring meltwater and runoff, water-supply planning, and studying climate change in snowy regions.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › ALBEDOCRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW COVER

Coverage & cadence

Time span2000-02-24 → ongoing
Measured byTerra (MODIS)
Processing levelLevel 3
Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
FormatsHDF-EOS2
StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

Measure sea ice, snow cover and glaciers
Watch ice-sheet elevation change
Track freeze/thaw and permafrost

Official description

This global Level-3 (L3) data set provides a daily composite of snow cover and albedo derived from the 'MODIS/Terra Snow Cover 5-Min L2 Swath 500m' data set (DOI:10.5067/MODIS/MOD10_L2.061). Each data granule is a 10°x10° tile projected to a 500 m sinusoidal grid. The terms "Version 61" and "Collection 6.1" are used interchangeably in reference to this release of MODIS data.

Get the data

mod10a1_access.py

import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MOD10A1",
    version="61",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from NSIDC_CPRD

Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.

What's measured

Coverage & cadence

What you can do with it

Get the data

Official links