Development of Daily Cloud-Free MODIS Snow Cover Maps for Pacific Northwest

Increasing demands for water resources in the West has given rise to many conflicts, increasing the need for more accurate and timely water management decisions. As a result there has been increased emphasis placed on the need to improve the numerous snowmelt run-off models that have been developed. Many of these models use snow cover extent maps derived from satellite imagery as an input variable. However, the utility of satellite derived snow-cover datasets have been limited due to the large number of scenes that are contaminated with cloud cover. In order to extend the utility of the MODIS Daily Snow Cover Products a method was developed to predict snow-cover in cloud-obscured areas using a snow occurrence mapping in the Big Lost River Basin in Idaho and was further applied to Pacific Northwest (PNW). Model results show that this method effectively increases the usefulness of the MODIS products in mapping how snow cover extent evolves over time across the entire PNW.