High Sierra Topix

For a fairly good look at current conditions in the Sierra, take a look at Google Earth. The date of the current Google Earth imagery is March 2015. Pretty recent. A lot of stuff is already snow free. And the snow pack is frighteningly sparse. Have a look.


EDIT: Funny, I went back and the dates suddenly changes to 2014, May. Maybe I just got a sneak peek and they pulled it. I could see that it was different than the 2015 I was looking at.

You cannot rely on the dates on google earth.

As I use the street view for my house, the date 2012 is plainly visible at the bottom of the screen. In my driveway is the pickup truck I sold in 2008.

The date on the picture may be the last time they renewed the rights. It is not necessarily the date of the imagery.

in Google Earth to trust the imagery date, you select View, then Historical Imagery, and it'll pop up a timeline view that you can step backwards in time with. (see red oval below; that's what pops up)

For example, Evelyn Lake, Tuolumne County (search)

Select as I said above, and you get the tool bar in the upper left.

It was frozen in 3/2015.

it was clear in 9/2013. same in 9/2012.

in 5/2012, looks like it was breaking up.

I use the Historical stuff to see the lay of the land w/o snow.

Remember that Google Earth is not realtime. They decide when their satellites take the pics. Street View is a different punch out app, so i don't even think Historical imagery applies to that.

An example of the page:
Russ

Also keep in mind that different spots ahve different imagery dates. Which is why you can be scrolling along viewing s snow-covered landscape and suddenly the snow ends at a razor-sharp straight line

I just wanted to second Paul's comment. Google uses a variety of sources for their satellite imagery so depending upon the location, there will be different dates (and quality) available. There must be some way to see recent satellite imagery to check snow coverage. Does anyone know where to find it?

There is this link that shows you what info is available for snow/watercontent, both ground based and satellite:

http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/snowmelt.php

Just found this site where you can see actual photos updated every day. Just scroll down, click the general area of the sierra and then download the first option labeled "reflectance."

http://modis-snow-ice.gsfc.nasa.gov/sno ... &d=2015089#'

(This posting editor looks pretty funny. I am writing this under FONT COLOR/Gmap4/etc...)

An interesting page is this one:
http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/interactive/ ... &js=1&uc=0

OK, that was kinda long. Click on the area of interest and use the zoom tool. It looks like you can walk up the Toulumne river canyon all the way up to the head of Lyle Canyon without hitting any snow. (I may have mis-spelled something, but I can't tell because as I write this, it is under the emoticons.)

From the outside looking in with web cams, you can't see much snow.
http://rockyags.cr.usgs.gov/dashboards/WebCam.htm?
Maybe tomorrow I will take a little road trip to the Sierra.

edit: I switch to Chrome, and now the post editor works fine now.