This directory contians snow products in form of binary data files and associated map images generated with the new automated snow retrieval system

The system output includes global daily maps of three snow cover parameters, the snow extent, snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE).
All maps are produced on a latitude-longitude grid at the spatial resolution of 0.04 deg or about 4km

Snow extent maps are generated within the Global Multisensor Automated Snow and Ice Mapping System (GMASI). GMASI has been operational at NOAA NESDUS since 2006.
The GMASI algorithm uses satellite observations in the optical bands from METOP AVHRR sensors and passive microwave observations from DMSP SSMIS, GCOM AMSR2 and GPM GMI.

The new snow depth and SWE retrieval algorithm uses snow depth observations at ground-based weather stations combined with satellite observations in the microwave. 

Product binary files and images in this directory cover the time period from January 15 to January 31,

Images directory
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Image files in the "images" directory are named as follows:

snow_ice_cover_full_yyyyddd.png             Full resolution (9000x4500) image of the binary snow and ice cover map 
snow_ice_cover_gl_4km_yyyyddd.png           Reduced resolution annotated image of the binary snow and ice cover map

snow_depth_full_4x4_2024015.png             Full resolution (9000x4500) image of the snow depth map
snow_depth_gl_4x4_2024015.png               Reduced resolution annotated image of the snow depth map
snow_depth_full_station_4x4_2024015.png     Full resolution (9000x4500) image of the snow depth map with ground station data overlaid

snow_swe_full_4x4_2024015.png               Full resolution (9000x4500) image of the snow water equivalent map
snow_swe_gl_4x4_2024015.png                 Reduced resolution annotated image of the snow water equivalent map

in all file names yyyyddd is the date of the map where yyyy is the four-digit year (2024) and ddd is the day of the year (015 to 031) 


Binary directory
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Binary data files in this directory characterize the derived global gridded daily snow depth (files named 04km_sndepyyyyddd) and 
the snow water equivalent (file named  04km_SWEyyyyddd) where yyyyddd is the four-digit yer and ddd is the day of the year.

Snow depth and SWE data are provided on a geographical latitude-longitude grid with 0.04 degree grid step or about 4 km spatial resolution.
The size of the grid is 9000 x 4500. Snow Depth and SWE is provided in cm and mm correspondingly and values are presented as 4-byte real.