C41B/C34E - Using NASA SnowEx Data to Advance Global Snow Observations through Remote Sensing, Algorithm Development and Modeling 

Using NASA snow data? Consider submitting an abstract to the fall AGU 2024 meeting. 

Participant applications open April 2-30. SnowEx Hackweek is a week long event with tutorials, peer-to-peer learning, and project based teamwork using NASA's SnowEx data. 

We invite you to showcase your work at this year's AGU conference during the SnowEx Community session. 

September 27-29, 2022 | NASA Ames Research Center | Moffett Field, CA, USA

Snow has long been recognized as a key climate variable, and is critically important to human welfare, security, and economics. Snow albedo, or the capacity of snow to absorb or reflect solar radiation, exerts a significant control on the Earth’s energy and water balance and is highly variable throughout space and time, especially in areas that experience seasonal snowpack. 

Visit the Albedo Workshop Website to register and learn more about the upcoming workshop. 

The call for abstracts for AGU Fall Meeting 2022 is now open!  Submit an abstract by 3 August for AGU22.

We are pleased to announce the SnowEx-focused session at this year's AGU gathering. 

Session Title: C039. Using NASA SnowEx Data for Algorithm Development and Modeling to Estimate Seasonal Snow and Snow Water Equivalent

Hackweek, July 11-15, 2022 in Seattle, WA

The upcoming SnowEx campaign will take place in tundra and boreal forest regions of Alaska this winter 2022-23.  For this campaign, we are planning two ground efforts – one during low-snow conditions in October 2022, and one during snow-on conditions in March 2023. Find out more information on the 2023 Campaign page.

A strong nor'easter hit US Northeast (see MODIS Aqua satellite image acquired in the afternoon on December 17, 2020), stretching nearly 1000 miles from North Carolina to New England, producing the first winter storm of the season, and proving to be one of the biggest snow storm in New York, Philadelphia and other East Coast cities since a crippling 2016 blizzard as reported by

Winter weather advisories and winter storm warnings were went into effect during the week of September 6, 2020, as snow blanketed the Rockies, and overlapped with warnings advertising high fire danger as wildfires continue to rage across the West as reported by the Washington Post. Places such as  Boulder, Colorado, wound up with its earliest snow on record and Rapid City, South Dakota, saw its earliest measurable snowfall on record. In New Mexico record heat and record cold were reported over the course of 48 hours. 

Warmer than normal winter temperatures led to sparse snowfall across much of the Northern Hemisphere during the 2019-20 winter season. A recent report indicates that it could pass as "the second-warmest on record globally, in records going back more than a century," which was attributed to a strong polar vortex that kept much of the frigid air in the Arctic.

Winter never seemed to arrive in many major cities in the Northeast U.S. leading to unusually warm winter  2019-2020 season.  An exception was the Great Lakes region, which received significant winter snow fall due to the lake effect, especially from February 27-29 as reported by the NASA Earth Observatory. 

As shown by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite imagery, widespread snow blanketed the area around the Great Lakes on January 20, 2020. 

A severe winter storm hit the U.S. Pacific Northwest and the Great Plains region and Midwest, bringing flash floods, heavy snow, and hurricane-force winds disrupting Thanksgiving travel across the U.S. as reported by several media outlets.