Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch

Identifying Snow with Daytime RGB Satellite Products

Introduction

This is a basic-level teletraining that will address how snow can be identified from day-time multispectral imagery using Red/Green/Blue (RGB) image combinations. Three of the 4 snow RGBs that are shown are created from available image channels on polar orbiting satellites (MODIS or VIIRS). The fourth RGB is created from GOES imagery. This session will briefly highlight why there are different products and also point out similarities between the products. Many of these are available now in either AWIPS I or II as Proving Ground demonstration products. They will be available in the future from GOES-R.

References/Additional Links

• PDF of this Training Session
• Talking points of this Training Session
• COMET module: RGB Products Explained
  https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_module.php?id=568
• Imagery and brief descriptions:
  • CIRA GOES-R Product List (select ‘MODIS Cloud Layers & Snow Cover Discriminator’ AND ‘GOES Snow/Cloud Discriminator’)
    https://rammb2.cira.colostate.edu/research/goes-r/proving_ground/cira_product_list/
  • SPoRT – MODIS CONUSA Snow/Cloud
    http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/sportPublishData.pl?dataset=modisconusa&product=conusa_snowcloud
  • SPoRT – VIIRS CONUSA Snow/Cloud
    http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/sportPublishData.pl?dataset=viirsconusa&product=conusa_snowcloud
  • Rapid Response Near Real Time MODIS images:
    http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/imagery/realtime.cgi
  • MODIS Today – CIMSS/SSEC (select False Color)
    http://ge.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-today/index.php
  • RGB examples from the CIMSS Satellite Blog