SnowEx20 Grand Mesa IOP: Lidar-Derived Snow Depth Raster Maps

SnowEx20 Grand Mesa IOP QSI Lidar Snow Depth Data V001 contains rasterized snow depth maps derived from lidar point cloud data. The data was collected from Grand Mesa, Colorado during the SnowEx20 campaign and served as input for deriving snow water equivalent and snow density products. This dataset is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Use Cases

• Validating snow water equivalent (SWE) models based on lidar-derived snow depth.
• Analyzing spatial snow depth distribution for hydrological forecasting in the Grand Mesa region.
• Comparing airborne lidar snow depth measurements with other remote sensing or in-situ data.

Strengths

• Data is part of the structured SnowEx20 campaign, indicating a coordinated scientific collection effort.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData suggests institutional importance and curation.
• Directly linked to a derived snow water equivalent and density product (DOI: 10.5067/LANQ53RTJ2DR), providing context for its application.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as row count, file size, column names, and license are not provided in any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2026-03-13 vs. 2020-02-02), creating uncertainty about data freshness.
• The description references a 'subset data file', suggesting this may not be the complete dataset from the campaign.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Derived from lidar point cloud data collected during the SnowEx20 campaign.

Time Range

Campaign period: SnowEx20 (likely 2020).

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: Data.gov lists 2026-03-13, while NASA EarthData lists 2020-02 02.

Geography

Grand Mesa, Colorado, USA.