Where there's snow (Terra, monthly, 0.05 deg) — MOD10CM

In plain English

What it measures. Shows the monthly average extent of snow cover across the globe, mapped in roughly 5 km grid cells.

How it's made. Calculated by averaging the daily MODIS snow-cover product from NASA's Terra satellite over each calendar month.

How & where you'd use it. Helpful for tracking seasonal and year-to-year changes in snow, studying climate, and informing water-supply planning in snow-fed regions.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW COVER

Coverage & cadence

Time span2000-03-01 → 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 monthly mean snow cover extent within 0.05° (approx. 5 km) MODIS Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) cells. This data set is derived from snow cover observations in the 'MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG’ data set (DOI:10.5067/MODIS/MOD10C1.061). The terms "Version 61" and "Collection 6.1" are used interchangeably in reference to this release of MODIS data.

Get the data

mod10cm_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MOD10CM",
    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.

Official links

Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Monthly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG, Version 61 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
MODIS Grids and Tile Locators VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
MODIS Snow Products Collection 6.1 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION