• NSIDC DAAC is currently upgrading our data ingest process for NASA Earthdata Cloud. During this transition, users may notice temporary interruptions in data availability or notice small data gaps. All gaps will be resolved as quickly as possible. During this upgrade jpeg browse imagery will also not be available for preview in Earthdata search. Please reach out to NSIDC User Services with any questions or concerns.

  • VIIRS Version 1 (Collection 1) snow and sea ice data sets will cease forward processing on June 17, 2024. The Version 1 data will remain available for download, but users are encouraged to transition to VIIRS Version 2. VIIRS Version 2 includes new snow, sea ice, and ice surface temperature data sets from both the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 (NOAA-20) satellite.

VIIRS/JPSS1 Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 375m SIN Grid, Version 2
Data set id:
VJ110A1
DOI: 10.5067/UAJGR7WVWDDI
This is the most recent version of these data.
Version Summary
Initial release as part of VIIRS/JPSS-1 Collection 2

Overview

This data set contains daily snow cover derived from radiance data acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the Joint Polar Satellite System's first satellite (JPSS-1). The data is a gridded composite, generated from 6 minute swaths, and projected to a 375 m Sinusoidal grid. Snow cover is identified using the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and a series of screens designed to alleviate errors and flag uncertain snow cover detections.
Parameter(s):
SNOW COVER
Platform(s):
JPSS-1
NOAA-20
Sensor(s):
VIIRS
Data Format(s):
HDF-EOS5
Temporal Coverage:
  • 5 January 2018 to present
Temporal Resolution:
  • 1 day
Spatial Resolution:
  • 375 m
  • 375 m
Spatial Reference System(s):
Not Specified
Spatial Coverage:
  • N:
    90
    S:
    -90
    E:
    180
    W:
    -180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.

Data Access & Tools

A free NASA Earthdata Login account is required to access these data. Learn More

Help Articles

General Questions & FAQs

This article covers frequently asked questions about the NASA NSIDC DAAC's Earthdata cloud migration project and what it means to data users.
Data products from VIIRS are created to be similar to MODIS data products to ensure the continuity needed for the development of snow and sea ice climate records beyond the life expectancy of MODIS. The temporal resolution and spatial extent are identical in MODIS and VIIRS.

How to Articles

Many NSIDC DAAC data sets can be accessed using NSIDC DAAC's Data Access Tool. This tool provides the ability to search and filter data with spatial and temporal constraints using a map-based interface.Users have the option to:
To convert HDF5 files into binary format you will need to use the h5dump utility, which is part of the HDF5 distribution available from the HDF Group. How you install HDF5 depends on your operating system.
The NASA Earthdata Cloud is the NASA cloud-based archive of Earth observations. It is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Learn how to find and access NSIDC DAAC data directly in the cloud.