Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch

Snow/Cloud-Layers Product Updates

The Snow/Cloud-Layers product developed at CIRA utilizes 11 spectral bands to discriminate snow and ice from clouds. The information from these bands is combined to highlight snow and ice in white, low-level (liquid) clouds in yellow, and high/deep clouds in magenta against a snow-free background land surface in green (Fig. 1). Unfortunately, the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on GOES-East and GOES-West lacks an equivalent to the VIIRS Day/Night Band, which precludes the detection of snow at night. As a result, the original version of the Snow/Cloud-Layers product reverted to monochromatic (grayscale) IR-based imagery that was not particularly useful at night. A new algorithm has been developed and evaluated over the CONUS/PACUS sectors the past two winters that tracks where snow is identified during the day, and uses this snow mask to help forecasters track where snow is at night, assuming no melting or accumulation overnight. This has allowed us to modify the ABI Snow/Cloud-Layers product to more closely match what is available from VIIRS (referred to as the VIIRS Snow/Cloud Discriminator) and make the nighttime side of the Snow/Cloud-Layers product appear similar to the daytime side (Fig. 2). Coincident with this update, the new algorithm has also been modified to work with Himawari-9 AHI, GK2A AMI and Meteosat-12 FCI, and is now running for all sectors for these satellites on SLIDER. Simply select “Snow/Cloud-Layers” from the product menu: https://slider.cira.colostate.edu (POC: C. Seaman and S. Miller, CIRA; curtis.seaman@colostate.edu; steven.miller@colostate.edu) Funding: GOES-R

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Posted on: March 6, 2026