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Full catalog/VJ210
VJ210·v2·dataset

Where there's snow (VIIRS, NOAA-21, 375 m)

VIIRS/JPSS2 Snow Cover 6-Min L2 Swath 375m V002
cryosphere NASA NSIDC_CPRD Level 2 active NetCDF
In plain English

What it measures. Maps showing where snow is on the ground, at about 375-meter detail, along the satellite's path.

How it's made. Produced from the VIIRS sensor on the NOAA-21 (JPSS-2) satellite, which spots snow using a brightness index that distinguishes snow from other surfaces.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking snow cover for water-supply forecasting, flood prediction, and climate and weather studies.

What's measured

CRYOSPHERE › SNOW/ICE › SNOW COVER

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2023-02-10 → ongoing
  • Measured byJPSS-2 (VIIRS) · NOAA-21 (VIIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsNetCDF
  • 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 data set reports the location of snow cover using radiance data acquired by the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the Joint Polar Satellite System's second satellite (JPSS-2). Snow cover is identified using the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and a series of quality control screens.

Get the data

vj210_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VJ210",
    version="2",
    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.