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Full catalog/SNEX20_QSI_SD_3m
SNEX20_QSI_SD_3m·v1·dataset

How deep the snow is, from airborne lidar (3 m, SnowEx)

SnowEx20-21 QSI Lidar Snow Depth 3m UTM Grid V001
land NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 3 TIFF
In plain English

What it measures. How deep the snow lay on the ground, mapped in fine 3-meter squares across study sites in Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. It captures snow depth from two winters: February 2020 and March 2021.

How it's made. Built from airborne lidar (laser scans flown on a King Air aircraft) that were turned into detailed terrain models and then differenced to work out how much snow sat on top of the ground.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying mountain snowpack, estimating how much water will run off when snow melts, and checking other snow-measurement methods against detailed ground truth.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › TOPOGRAPHY › TERRAIN ELEVATION › DIGITAL ELEVATION/TERRAIN MODEL (DEM)

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-02-09 → 2020-02-19
  • Measured byKing Air (LIDAR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-117.0661, 43.0343, -114.8547, 44.3658
  • FormatsTIFF
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

This data set is part of the SnowEx 2020 and SnowEx 2021 campaigns and provides snow depth values at a 3.0 m spatial resolution, derived from point cloud digital terrain models. Snow depths are available for February 2020 and March 2021 for multiple areas in Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. These data were produced alongside <a href="https://doi.org/10.5067/VV382L4MQI7V">DEM</a> and <a href="https://10.5067/K67GKZQ9WUEI">Vegetation Height</a> data sets.

Get the data

snex20_qsi_sd_3m_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SNEX20_QSI_SD_3m",
    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.