SnowEx is an airborne campaign to determine which sensor or combination of sensors would work best at collecting global snow mass measurements from space — currently an inconsistently collected and difficult-to-obtain data point that scientists say is critical to understanding the world’s water resources. “Winter 1” activities will take place from February 6-25, 2017.  A small subset of sensors—LiDAR and radar--require background measurements without snow before this time period (late September 2016).  The full suite of sensors will fly in February 2017 to collect multi-sensor observations in dry snow conditions.

The focus of Year 2 (FY18) will be analysis of Year 1 data and planning of future activities.  Minor targeted additional observations might be undertaken to fill critical gaps needed for analysis.