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Full catalog/SNEX20_A19_SP
SNEX20_A19_SP·v1·dataset

Hand-dug snow pit measurements (SnowEx, autumn 2019)

SnowEx20 Grand Mesa Autumn 2019 Snow Pits V001
hydrosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 2 JPEGASCIIExcel
In plain English

What it measures. Hand-collected measurements from snow pits dug at 21 spots on Colorado's Grand Mesa in autumn 2019, describing the snow at each location.

How it's made. Gathered by field crews on the ground during the NASA SnowEx 2020 campaign; some pits are incomplete where snow was shallow or patchy.

How & where you'd use it. Ground-truth data that helps validate and interpret snow measurements from aircraft and satellites, and supports snow and water research.

What's measured

TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › LIQUID WATER CONTENTTERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW DENSITYTERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW/ICE TEMPERATURETERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW STRATIGRAPHY

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-11-04 → 2019-11-06
  • Measured byGROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS (A2 Photonic_WISe, MICROSCOPES, SNOW DENSITY CUTTER, THERMOMETERS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-108.20137, 39.0083, -108.15063, 39.04617
  • FormatsJPEG, ASCII, Excel
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Follow rainfall, floods and surface-water extent
  • Track soil moisture and the onset of drought
  • Monitor lakes, rivers and groundwater storage
Official description

This data set contains snow pit measurements obtained as part of the SnowEx 2020 campaign at the Grand Mesa, Colorado, USA site in Autumn 2019. 21 locations were visited for snow pit observations. Some snow pit measurements are incomplete due to shallow or discontinuous snow cover.

Get the data

snex20_a19_sp_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SNEX20_A19_SP",
    version="1",
    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.