where the snow still is south

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SSSdave
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where the snow still is south

Post by SSSdave »

Have been stuck at home without wheels for more than a week now trying to get my Forester smog test certified for my delinquent registration fighting the most notorious P0420 catalytic converter code. So today screen captured the below 7/12/2017 image from today's MODIS snow page. Note smoke from fire at bottom in the Kern area.

Image

Then annotated the below of a crop from the southern section of the range that was a worthy challenge for my map skills.

Image

Did not find a map key to interpret the snow area colors, however they seem to be representing areas with partial snow now, unlike when I did my Styx Pass backpack a few weeks ago. The snowiest zone not surprisingly is the high Kings Canyon National Park areas between Evolution Valley,the MF of the Kings River. Black Divide, Le Conte, White Divide. Areas in the upper Kern including the Whitney crest areas are already rather thin with relatively more snow atop the Great Western Divide. Tends to correspond with pictures Harlen just posted from his trip last week showing the main Bear Creek areas down in the canyon snow free nicely green and flowery while all the upper basins are mostly still unpleasant bright suncupped snow fields with areas of rock melting out.

David
http://www.davidsenesac.com/2017_Trip_C ... les-0.html
Last edited by SSSdave on Sat Jul 15, 2017 8:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: where the snow still is south

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Image

The above image I found today is 10 days old now but is easily the clearest image I've noted over the last few weeks providing an excellent way to tell where snow is. Thus somewhat more will have melted out by now. Interesting is the difference between snow and granite. West of Mono Lake is snow then at the left image edge large areas of granite with a southern outline of darker forest.

This next image is an annotated crop from Tahoe, useful to this person because I want to backpack into the Lake Aloha zone when ice on the lake is about half melted out with lots of small bergs. And will need to wait some:

Image

Below is an annotated crop of southern Kings and Kern areas. My interest there is I hope to finally after many years finally do my 10-day backpack from Symmes Creek up over Shepherd Pass in the Upper Kern Basin areas. On August 21 will be up at the Painted Hills at John Day Fossil Monument in Oregon for the eclipse so the Kern trip will be as soon as I get back and pack up. From what I see it is going to be perfect conditions for what I have been waiting for with peak greenery and still lots of snow on surrounding peaks. This week tweaked my detailed custom map and spreadsheets for that work where I will semi base camp at 3 locations down in foxtails.

Image

David
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Re: where the snow still is south

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Image

This morning the latest clear MODIS snow cover satellite image was way back on July 4, the holiday. On many afternoons, clouds obscure the range. But this afternoon they loaded in a whole week's worth of day's images with this annotated above crop from July 12 exceptionally clear. Provides an outstanding image showing of where snow still covers this section of the range.

As can be seen, many of the mid elevation large stream canyon bottoms are mostly snow free while above are vast areas of bright snowfields. Exactly what Harlen found on his report just a couple days ago. Unfortunately for backpackers that are targeting their usual timberline elevation lake areas, most are still up in the snow much like the El Nino year of 1995. But there are some fine lake opportunities mostly below snow.

Above Edison one can clearly see sunny south facing large Bathtub lake at 9.2k and a bit right Graveyard Lakes would likewise be melted out. Lowest 2 Pioneer Basin lakes would be melted out as would Lower Hopkins and the north end of Fourth Recess.

Also looks like Seldon Lake south of Seldon Pass is melted out. Lou Beverly is likely ok now. On NF Mono, the Mott and Bluejay zone looks right at the melt line so is fine. Big Margaret Lake and Dinkey Lakes looks fine. Some of the lower lakes in the Fish Creek drainage like Brave, Virginia, and Olive look dry. Now July 15 this is pretty much playing out like I expected 3 weeks ago.

David
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Re: where the snow still is south

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Another one today from the July 12 MODIS image. So much of southern Emigrant Wilderness is now melted out as expected while snow abruptly exists above a line from Grouse to Deer to Long to Upper Bucks and across to the back end of Huckleberry. Well if one can cross the streams.

On the eastside of Sonora Pass Fremont and several other lakes up the West Walker are open though again crossing the river is the real limitation.
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David
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Re: where the snow still is south

Post by SteveKatz »

Do you have a link to the MODIS page you're using here?
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Jimr
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Re: where the snow still is south

Post by Jimr »

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p ... 8603515625


I've tried playing with the snapshot icon, but all I get for a snapshot is a black area.
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
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