Thin Snow Cover in the Sierra Nevada

The winter of 2019-2020 was much drier than usual in California, as evidenced by the dearth of snow in the mountains.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Snow-water equivalent data courtesy of Noah Molotch (PI), Leanne Lestak (map development), Keith Musselman (collaborator), and Kehan Yang (model developer) / University of Colorado, Center for Water, Earth Science and Technology. Story by Kathryn Hansen with map interpretation by Kat Bormann / NASA JPL.

Published March 13, 2020
Data acquired 2015 - 2020

Sources:

Aircraft Sensors

Aqua > MODIS

In situ Measurement

Model

Terra > MODIS