• On March 19th and 20th, the NOAA-20 satellite will begin a sequence of propulsive maneuvers as part of an orbit rephasing effort. Rephasing NOAA-20 will take approximately 15 days, and the final orbit manuever is currently scheduled for April 4th, 2024. During the rephasing effort, data delivery may be delayed as science data undergoes additional review and quality testing, and users should exercise caution until the rephasing effort is complete.

  • VIIRS Version 1 (Collection 1) snow and sea ice data sets will cease forward processing on June 30, 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/NPP Snow Cover 6-Min L2 Swath 375m, Version 1
Data set id:
VNP10
DOI: 10.5067/VIIRS/VNP10.001
There is a more recent version of these data.

Overview

This data set reports the location of snow cover using radiance data acquired by the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. Snow cover is identified using the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and a series of quality control screens.
Parameter(s):
SNOW COVER
Platform(s):
SUOMI-NPP
Sensor(s):
VIIRS
Data Format(s):
NetCDF
Temporal Coverage:
19 January 2012 to present
Temporal Resolution:
  • 6 minute
Spatial Resolution:
  • 375 m
  • 375 m
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

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.
The lag time between observations and availability of VIIRS products is only a few days. Lag time may be extended due to satellite maneuvers and extra quality assurance required for the geolocation data after the maneuver.
This short article describes the customization services available for VIIRS data using Earthdata Search.

How to Articles

Many NSIDC DAAC data sets can be accessed using the 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
Data subscriptions are available for select NSIDC DAAC data collections. Once signed up, the subscription service automatically sends you new data as they are delivered from active NASA satellite missions.
All data from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) can be accessed directly from our HTTPS file system, using wget or curl. Basic command line instructions are provided in the article below. 
NASA Earthdata Search is a map-based interface where a user can search for Earth science data, filter results based on spatial and temporal constraints, and order data with customizations including re-formatting, re-projecting, and spatial and parameter subsetting.