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Description
This data set contains daily, gridded snow cover and albedo derived from radiance data acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra satellite. 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.
As of August 2023, this data set is retired and no longer available for download. We recommend using <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/mod10a1/versions/61">MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m SIN Grid, Version 61</a> as an alternative.
Version Description
Changes for Version 6 include:
Fractional Snow Cover has been replaced by Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) snow cover. Fractional Snow Cover is no longer calculated;
The binary Snow-Covered Area (SCA) map has been discontinued;
Existing data screens designed to reduce snow detection errors have been revised and several new screens have been added;
Data screen results, including snow detection reversals and detections with increased uncertainty, are provided in a new QA bit flag;
Basic pixel-level QA uses new criteria to indicate the overall quality of algorithm result;
Pointers are provided to locate the swaths used for each day's observation.
Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.
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Hall, D. K., & Riggs, G. A. (2015). MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m SIN Grid, Version 6 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD10A1.006 Date Accessed: 2026-08-03
Hall, D. K., & Riggs, G. A. (2015). MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m SIN Grid, Version 6 [Dataset]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD10A1.006 Date Accessed: 2026-08-03
Hall, Dorothy K., and George A. Riggs. “MODIS/Terra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m SIN Grid, Version 6.” NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, 2015, https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD10A1.006. Date Accessed: 2026-08-03