Sierra Nevada satellite...can you see

[SSSdave]

(mouse select to expand)

With Memorial Day Weekend in a few days, for we outdoor mountain enthusiasts in California, questions are where can on go without getting into much snow. As a bit of challenge lets see how talented some of you are looking at a map and satellite view of our mountains.

The following link is a good satellite visual of our current situation that I annotated in Photoshop per above:

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

Note there are some clouds in this view that is not snow. Particularly around Mammoth and far western slopes north of the Mokelumne R. Those clouds look different than snow areas as they are whiter.

I was just up in the Tuolumne and Merced areas near Yosemite till last Saturday and what I see on this image reflects what I saw. Where I show the Tuolumne R pointing line, it ends at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir that is indeed snow free as well as nearby Eleanor and Cherry Valley. On the online satellite view by increasing the magnification one more time, one can also make out Kibbie Lake above the end of Eleanor. Just west is a small white strip atop Kibbie Ridge that tops out a bit over 8k. That tells me I ought to be able to backpack up to the Styx Pass Lord Meadow zone in a couple weeks without any problems.

Half Dome, Merced L and Washburn L are also discernable. Mammoth Mtn is a large white area with the MF San Joaquin R canyon less white than surrounding San Joaquin Ridge or the Ritter Range. Can you see Convict L just west of Crowley? Well use this for help haha:

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.58829,-118.85044&z=11&t=H

Back on the west side Huntington, Edison, and Florence Lake reservoirs quite snow free as is the SF San Joaquin R up to Piute Cr. But Kaiser Pass and the Dinkey areas are still snowy. A bit south Wishon is not visible while Courtright and areas due south are all melted out.

Further south one can see Sabrina but not South Lake that is probably still iced over. What about the White Mountains? It shows areas south of County Line Hill are snow free while areas north have increasing snow.

Most of huge Kings Canyon is all snow free to Paradise Valley. Do you see the Great Western Divide and SF Kaweah R at Mineral King? What about Kern L and Big Arroyo?

David

[wildhiker]

The Forest Service is also maintaining a geo-referenced version of the satellite snow coverage - and depth estimates - that identifies roads and natural features for you at
https://www.fs.fed.us/r5/webmaps/SierraSnowDepth
I've been checking it every few days against the MODIS satellite view as shown by Dave above and it appears that the Forest Service map is updating frequently.

[giantbrookie]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for posting this link. This is very useful. Whereas the small high lakes would be very difficult to resolve, some of the large ones are and this very much helps calibrate the thaw in an up-to-date way. This is giving me some hope for my snooping around the northernmost Sierra June 2-4. I can see that Gold Lake is already thawed, for example. I couldn't resolve Loon L., but if Gold is thawed, Loon will be (Loon thaws before Gold in most years), which means the large lakes of NW Deso are thawed as of now. Many of the Lakes Basin area lakes will be thawed, too.

I have been experiencing some very fierce weather, including snow storms on Sat. and Sunday in Newfoundland (finished 5 day geology field trip as of yesterday afternoon). This is apparently unusually late in the season to be this cold up here. It was neat to see icebergs and sea ice, though. Not something a native Californian gets to see back home. I will probably post a few photos on Beyond the Sierra Nevada in a few days.

Anyhow I'm looking forward to getting back to my "home" mountain range (posted from my hotel lobby in St. John's).

GB

[SSSdave]

Lots of Cambrian rock up thar...beneath the snow.

http://www.nr.gov.nl.ca/nr/mines/invest ... map_nl.pdf

As another old map master, you are one of the few on the board I expected would quickly see the value as yet another very useful Internet information source has become available. So much easier than in the old days. Also not at all surprising no one else has chimed in as in the past whenever I've used topo links on the board to help discussions, rarely do others comment as though more than simple use is over their heads.

A nifty feature on the link is the date day graph control at page bottom as if the current image has clouds, one can move back in days till finding a clear view of whatever zone. Also by moving up and down dates, one gets some sense of the melting rates at snow perimeters.

North of Gold Lake one can see the snow on the ridge that appears to be above maybe 6.5k if correlated with the acme.mapper link. And that is exactly why as you noted the Lake Basin waters are close to showing. West of Desolation, Wrights Lake is visible with a big blob of snow just south in what is heavy forest. Across the crest can see west of Fallen Leaf is melted out to about the Glen Alpine Springs buildings.

Here is another good challenge. Who can see shadows to the east of Palisade Crest?

David

[oldranger]

Dave

I think you are giving folks on the forum short shrift. I pay attention to what you write, understand it, and appreciate it but seldom comment. I think many others do the same.

[Jimr]

Same here. I played around with your link for quite awhile when you first posted it, and bookmarked it.

[gdurkee]

OK campers. Let me see if I can upload a georeferenced image from June 2, 2017 MODIS imagery. I've put the JMT/PCT on it in Red, trails for Yosemite and Sequoia Kings in green and park boundaries in blue. I fear my trails are off in places by as much as 1/4 mile, but I kept getting distortion when trying to match the image. For the scale, it's not greatly critical.... . My next project will be to try to post this on ArcGIS Online for semi real-time and connect directly to the MODIS (sat imagery) server. Technical problem in that MODIS doesn't post California until about 2PM or so. (Hmmm. I guess I could set it to update every 24 hours... Yes, I'll try that. Might be a few days...).

Also, I was just going through old snow survey reports. This year is comparable to 1969 and 1983 as far as higher elevation (>8,500') snow depths go. On June 1, 1969 there was 100 inches of snow at Charlotte Ridge (at about 10,800' just above Charlotte Lake) on the JMT.

Yosemite_MODIS_June1-2017.jpg

CentralJMT_MODIS_June1-2017.jpg

SequoiaKings_MODIS_June1-2017.jpg

[rlown]

Nice pics, George.. Sooo, what you're saying is... we have snow.

136" still at the cdec station at Tioga Entry. http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryF?TES

And the update on plowing says they are hitting 6'-10' with 20' deep drifts in places. They have somewhat carved to the East end of Tenaya Lk.

September is looking better and better all the time.

[gdurkee]

Russ: Yep, bummed I'm no longer working out there (though my wife isn't...). I did, though, just start in Yosemite as a part-time GIS geek.

And, I just created a web map of this:
http://arcg.is/1Caq9v

There's some technical problems with displaying MODIS imagery. For instance, today 6/3, showed as cloudy. So I set it to show a static 5/30. I'll update it every few days when there's a clear image. If any of you GIS geeks know how to solve this problem, send me a note

[rlown]

George, how often do the satellites fly over? The drill-down to the surface is obscure. Besides, most trails will be too deep in snow early season.