MOD10A1.061 Terra Snow Cover Daily Global 500m

MODIS/061/MOD10A1
Dataset Availability
2000-02-24T00:00:00Z–2025-07-11T00:00:00Z
Dataset Provider
Earth Engine Snippet
ee.ImageCollection("MODIS/061/MOD10A1")
Cadence
1 Day
Tags
albedo cryosphere daily geophysical global modis nasa nsidc snow terra
mod10a1

Description

The MOD10A1 V6.1 Snow Cover Daily Global 500m product contains snow cover, snow albedo, fractional snow cover, and quality assessment (QA) data. Snow cover data are based on a snow mapping algorithm that employs a Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and other criteria tests.

General documentation

Bands

Pixel Size
500 meters

Bands

Name Min Max Scale Description
NDSI_Snow_Cover 0 100

NDSI snow cover. This value is computed for MOD10_L2 and retrieved when the observation of the day is selected. Provider values above 100 are masked out in this band (they can be found in the "NDSI_Snow_Cover_Class" band).
NDSI_Snow_Cover_Basic_QA

A basic estimate of the quality of the algorithm result. This value is computed for MOD10_L2 and retrieved with the corresponding observation of the day.
NDSI_Snow_Cover_Algorithm_Flags_QA

Bit flags indicating screen results and the presence of inland water. These flags are set when MOD10_L2 is generated and retrieved with the corresponding observation of the day.
NDSI 0 10000 0.0001

Raw NDSI (i.e. prior to screening). This value is computed for MOD10_L2 and retrieved with the corresponding observation of the day.
Snow_Albedo_Daily_Tile 1 100

Snow albedo percentage. Provider values above 100 are masked out in this band (they can be found in the "Snow_Albedo_Daily_Tile_Class" band).
orbit_pnt

Pointer to the orbit number of the swath that was selected as the observation of the day. The pointer references by index the list of orbit numbers written to the ORBITNUMBERARRAY metadata object in ArchiveMetadata.0.
granule_pnt

Pointer to the granule (swath) that was mapped into the tile. The pointer references the corresponding value in the GRANULEPOINTERARRAY metadata object written to ArchiveMetadata.0.
NDSI_Snow_Cover_Class

Landcover classes from the "NDSI_Snow_Cover" subdataset (provider values less than or equal to 100 are masked out).
Snow_Albedo_Daily_Tile_Class

Landcover classes from the "Snow_Albedo_Daily_Tile" subdataset (provider values less than or equal to 100 are masked out).

NDSI_Snow_Cover_Class Class Table

Value Color Description
200 None

Missing data
201 None

No decision
211 None

Night
237 None

Inland water
239 None

Ocean
250 None

Cloud
254 None

Detector saturated

Snow_Albedo_Daily_Tile_Class Class Table

Value Color Description
101 None

No decision
111 None

Night
125 None

Land
137 None

Inland water
139 None

Ocean
150 None

Cloud
151 None

Cloud detected as snow
250 None

Missing
251 None

Self-shadowing
252 None

Land mask mismatch
253 None

BRDF failure
254 None

Non-production mask

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

You may download and use photographs, imagery, or text from the NSIDC web site, unless limitations for its use are specifically stated. For more information on usage and citing NSIDC datasets, please visit the NSIDC 'Use and Copyright' page.

Citations

Citations:

  • Hall, D. K., V. V. Salomonson, and G. A. Riggs. 2016. MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m Grid. Version 6. Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center.

DOIs

Explore with Earth Engine

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.ImageCollection('MODIS/061/MOD10A1')
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2018-04-01', '2018-05-01'));
var snowCover = dataset.select('NDSI_Snow_Cover');
var snowCoverVis = {
  min: 0.0,
  max: 100.0,
  palette: ['black', '0dffff', '0524ff', 'ffffff'],
};
Map.setCenter(-41.13, 76.35, 3);
Map.addLayer(snowCover, snowCoverVis, 'Snow Cover');
Open in Code Editor
The MOD10A1 V6.1 Snow Cover Daily Global 500m product contains snow cover, snow albedo, fractional snow cover, and quality assessment (QA) data. Snow cover data are based on a snow mapping algorithm that employs a Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and other criteria tests. General documentation
MODIS/061/MOD10A1, albedo,cryosphere,daily,geophysical,global,modis,nasa,nsidc,snow,terra
2000-02-24T00:00:00Z/2025-07-11T00:00:00Z
-90 -180 90 180
Google Earth Engine