Earth by LifeHubber

Public satellite imagery

Where does snow show up from space?

Choose a place and learn to read NASA’s snow colours.

Explore snow patterns

Snow from space

A colour-coded view of snow

NASA Terra / MODIS · daily snow index

Imagery day:

Start somewhere:

World view. Choose a region, then pan or zoom to explore.

Loading NASA snow imagery.

Read the colours

Snow index, from 1 to 100

These colours show the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI), which uses reflected light to help identify snow. The numbers are an index, not snow depth or a percentage of ground covered.

  • 1–20
  • 21–40
  • 41–60
  • 61–80
  • 81–99
  • 100

Swatches sample NASA’s palette; shades vary within each range. See the full NASA colour key.

What if there is no colour?

The reference map can show through where the overlay is transparent. That includes a zero index, cloud, night, water, missing data and other masked values. This view cannot tell you which reason applies to a blank patch.

Try a small observation

Describe one patch

  1. Choose a region and find a coloured patch, if one is visible.
  2. Match its shade to the key. Does it form a narrow band, scattered patches or a larger area?
  3. Switch the snow colours off to find the place on the reference map, then switch them back on.
How could I describe it?

“Near this place, I can see a band of pink snow-index colours. The nearby uncoloured area could have several explanations; this view alone doesn’t tell me whether it has snow.”

If you find no coloured patch, try another region. No visible colour is still an observation, but it is not proof that snow is absent.

Timing

Daily product, not a live camera

The map reads NASA GIBS’s default date for this product, then requests that exact imagery day. The date above the map is the product’s day in UTC, not the time you opened the page or the exact time each place was observed. Coverage can have gaps, and a current-day image may still be incomplete.

For a specific date or a comparison through time, use NASA Worldview and select its Terra / MODIS daily NDSI snow-cover layer.

Reading limits

A pattern, with gaps

Cloud can obscure snow, and the snow algorithm can confuse some clouds with snow. Zooming helps you locate a patch; it does not create more detailed satellite observations.

The reference map beneath the colours is not a satellite photograph. These colours cannot tell you snow depth, snowfall since yesterday or conditions on a local path.

MODIS snow-product guide (PDF)

Source context

NASA GIBS source imagery

We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).

LifeHubber Earth is not affiliated with, sponsored by, approved by, or endorsed by NASA. No NASA logos, marks, or badges are used here.

Use the links below to inspect the NASA GIBS product, service details, and imagery-use guidance.

NASA GIBS API documentation / NASA Earthdata GIBS overview / NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines