Where is the Snow?

One important thing we always have to consider is what the weather is going to be at the actual location being surveyed, not just at the home office.  That's usually a straight-forward matter of looking ahead, but sometimes what's important is what happened there previously.

I've left home on a warm day in the winter with no snow on the ground, only to arrive at a site with lots of snow cover - which is why I like to check the NOAA National Snow Analyses page before heading to a site this time of year.

It has 9 useful national maps, but the one I generally find most useful is the Snow Depth map, which shows current snow depths nationwide, updated daily.  Looking at it today, I can see that most of Ohio is snow-free after after a few days of temperatures above freezing and rain, but the north half of Pennsylvania still has snow cover of 1-10 inches.

There are also zoomed-in maps of particular regions, like the Southern Great Lakes or Allegheny Front.