ASCAT Soil Moisture (H SAF)
Gov-Public
Near-real-time scatterometer soil moisture from EUMETSAT — hours of latency, useful for operational monitoring.
Data, Monitoring & ForecastingActiveSatellite Soil Moisture DataStreamflow Forecasting
MODIS Snow Cover
Active500m daily/8-day global snow-cover extent from MODIS — the standard optical snow product for basin-scale tracking.
by NASA / NSIDC
- Pricing
- Gov-Public
- License
- US Government (public domain)
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- Google Earth Engine, Python
- Platform
- Windows, macOS, Linux
About MODIS Snow Cover
MOD10A1/A2 (Terra) and MYD10A1/A2 (Aqua) map binary and fractional snow cover globally at 500m resolution, daily and as cloud-gap-filled 8-day composites, distributed through NSIDC since 2000. As an optical product it sees snow extent directly but not depth or water equivalent — pair it with SNODAS or a snow model where SWE is what the analysis actually needs.
For basin-scale snow-cover-area tracking, melt-timing analysis and validating snowmelt runoff models against observed extent, MODIS snow cover is the default reference product worldwide.
Where it fits in the workflow
TerrainCatchmentRainfallRunoffRoutingHydraulicsMappingReporting
Alternatives to MODIS Snow Cover
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Delft-FEWS
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Deltares' operational forecasting platform — the shell running national flood-forecast centres worldwide.
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ERA5 / ERA5-Land
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ECMWF's hourly global reanalysis — the default gap-free climate forcing record for ungauged catchments worldwide.
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The longest satellite soil moisture record available — merged active+passive retrievals back to 1978, free, no login.
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GRACE / GRACE-FO Mascons
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Monthly total water storage change from satellite gravity — the only direct signal of large-scale groundwater depletion.
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