MODIS/Aqua Snow Cover: 500m Resolution Near Real-Time Swath Data

NASA's MODIS/Aqua instrument provides snow cover data in near real-time. The dataset contains two primary fields: binary snow cover classification and fractional snow cover percentage for each pixel over land and inland water bodies. Data is stored in HDF-EOS format, with geolocation at 5 km resolution and snow fields at 500 m resolution.

Use Cases

• Monitoring daily snow extent changes based on the binary snow cover field.
• Estimating snow water equivalent for hydrological models based on fractional snow cover percentages.
• Validating and improving snow mapping algorithms using the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) methodology.
• Studying lake ice and inland water body ice phenology using the classified pixel data.

Strengths

• Provides two distinct snow data fields: binary classification and fractional percentage.
• Offers high spatial resolution for snow cover analysis at 500 meters.
• Data is available in near real-time, facilitating timely monitoring.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the satellite's swath coverage.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected via the MODIS instrument aboard the Aqua satellite, processed using a snow mapping algorithm employing NDSI.

Time Range

Near Real Time (NRT)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:47:55.363984; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, based on satellite swath coverage.