Satellite-derived snow cover maps for north America: Accuracy assessment

Abstract An automated, satellite-based snow mapping system has been developed at NOAA/NESDIS to provide operational snow cover monitoring over the North American continent. The system uses visible, mid-infrared and infrared observations of the Imager instrument onboard NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and microwave measurements made with a Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite. In the paper we give a brief description of the system and analyze its performance during 1998–1999 and 1999–2000 winter seasons. Snow depth observations made at ground stations were used to assess the accuracy of snow mapping. The sources of satellite snow mapping errors and other reasons leading to discrepancies between satellite retrievals and surface data are discussed.