PIA17773: Snow Water Equivalent for Tuolumne River Basin
NASA Airborne Snow Observatory measurements of snow water equivalent (top image) and snow albedo, or reflectivity (bottom image) for the Tuolumne River Basin in California's Sierra Nevada on April 21, 2013.
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Airborne Snow Observatory 
 Product Size:  1648 x 2546 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Other  
Information: 		 JPL News Release 2013-154 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17773.tif (12.59 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17773.jpg (1.068 MB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

NASA Airborne Snow Observatory measurements of snow water equivalent (top image) and snow albedo, or reflectivity (bottom image) for the Tuolumne River Basin in California's Sierra Nevada on April 21, 2013. The snow water equivalent measured the total water contained as snow in the basin on that date at 375 million cubic meters, or enough to fill the Rose Bowl about 1,180 times. The albedo map expresses the percentage of sunlight reflected back to space by the snow. The lower the albedo, the faster the snowmelt rate and runoff.

For more information about the Airborne Snow Observatory, visit: http://aso.jpl.nasa.gov/. For more on NASA's Airborne Science program, visit: http://airbornescience.nasa.gov.

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2013-05-02