NASA SNOWEX

SnowSchool has long been a bridge for students to connect snow science and winter recreation. Thanks to an ongoing partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) SnowEx program, we’re excited to add a citizen science element that will give our students a role in helping scientists do the important work of measuring and monitoring the snowpack.

The NASA SnowEx mission aims to further advance new technology to remotely detect snow density (water content) from aircraft and, ultimately, an orbiting satellite. WWA ambassador and Boise State University snow scientist Hans-Peter Marshall is among the scientists leading the mission, and several of the aircraft flight paths in AK, CA, ID, UT and CO will go directly over SnowSchool sites between 2019 and 2023. NASA scientists need students to collect snow density samples on the ground and, with help from our partners at Community Snow Observations, send to researchers to compare to the data collect from aircraft. This is an exciting an opportunity for SnowSchool students! Read more.

SNOWEX 2023: Alaska!

The goal, ultimately, is to launch a satellite that will measure the amount of snow on our planet at any given time. To get there, SnowEx has a few different puzzle pieces to work with. In 2023 NASA will be flying aircraft over Alaska to test out different types of technical instruments. One can take three-dimensional photographs of the topography, which can be applied with a before-and-after method to see measure snow depth. Another instrument uses LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, which uses a laser to scan the surface of the earth. As scientists conduct tests with these airborne instruments, other snow scientists on the ground collect data from the snowpack manually that are then used to verify the data collected from aircraft. Check the five videos below from Dr. Katherine (Kate) Hale that detail the work snow scientists on the tundra in Alaska are doing as part of SnowEx 2023!

How SnowSchool Students and Teachers can Participate

Citizen scientists (that’s kids, teachers, parents, volunteers (AKA -you!)) can help SnowEX and the entire scientific community better understand snow. Data collected by hand across the globe can help improve computer snow models and verify snow data collected from satellites. Thus as the scientific community works to improve our understanding of snow, NASA and WWA SnowSchool are calling on students, teachers and winter enthusiasts everywhere to help by collecting and submitting citizen snow science data. SnowSchool sites leaders can prepare for a collaboration with the eventual NASA snow science satellite (coming sometime after 2023) by working to integrate the citizen snow science resources presented below. Don’t have snow near you? Check out these snow science kits from Alaska that can help anyone learn more about snow!

GLOBAL SNOWPACK DATA

As the NASA planes fly overhead, our students will be on snowshoes, taking samples of snow to measure SWE and uploading their information to a snowpack database hosted by our partners at Community Snow Observations (CSO). CSO is a global project intended to increase snowpack data, and anyone can contribute data.