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Snow Drought

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The Drought.gov team reformats data from multiple partners into web- and GIS-ready formats, which we use throughout Drought.gov. These data, hosted on Google Cloud Storage, are free for all to download or reference directly from their web applications.

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Maps
Dataset Name

Snow Water Equivalent Percent of Median: Water Year Peak

Update Schedule
Data Valid
Last Update
06/13/24

SNOTEL station data were available from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service for the western U.S.

Source(s)
Update Schedule

An updated, interactive version of this map is available through the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Dataset Name

SNOTEL Snow Water Equivalent Percent of Median

Update Schedule
Data Valid
Last Update
06/05/24

The Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) SWE map is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), showing basinwide snow water equivalent as a percentage of the NRCS 1991–2020 median. Only stations with at least 20 years of data are included in the station averages.

Source(s)
Update Schedule

Snow water equivalent (SWE) data are updated multiple times a day on the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service website. View the latest map.

Map
Dataset Name

Snow Water Equivalent Percent of Median: SNOTEL HUC 6 Basin Values

Update Schedule
Data Valid End of Day
Last Update
07/12/25

Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) data is available from USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). We scrape basin-wide snow water equivalent (SWE) values for HUC 6 basins across the western U.S.  Data are obtained from NRCS daily for conditions two days ago. The map shows SWE conditions as of the end of the day two days ago, with data updated yesterday.

Source(s)
Update Schedule

This map is updated daily, with a 2-day delay. The snow water equivalent (SWE) values shown on the map reflect conditions 2 days ago (the date shown below the map) based on data provided by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) yesterday. NRCS may make additional adjustments to these data. For the most up-to-date information, view NRCS's interactive map.

Map
Dataset Name

SNODAS Snow Water Equivalent Percent of Average

Update Schedule
Data Valid
Last Update
07/12/25

SNODAS (SNOw Data Assimilation System) data from Climate Engine were available in raster format. Data displayed shows snow water equivalent (SWE) percent of average conditions. SNODAS is a modeling and data assimilation system developed by NOAA's National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) to provide the best possible estimates of snow cover and associated parameters to support hydrologic modeling and analysis.

Source(s)
Update Schedule

SNODAS data are updated daily.