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Vuyovich: NASA SnowEx is a is a multi-year 
field campaign to test a number of different  

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remote sensing technologies that might get 
launched from space or in preparation for  

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some planned satellites. In past years we've had 
you know a lot of people from all over the place,  

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even internationally, come together to collect 
observations and conduct a several week-long  

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campaign. This year we really had to change the 
design of that, and now we're focusing a lot more  

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on local teams. So we have local research groups 
who have you know maybe been using a study area  

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for a number of years, continuing to collect 
observations and following the SnowEx protocol.  

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So at all these sites they're collecting the same 
observations on the ground, while the different  

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planes fly overhead. One of our sites is in 
Idaho is being led by Boise State University,  

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and a number of graduate students are going out on 
a weekly basis to collect observations. Marshall:  

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I think one of the things that makes Boise State 
really unique in terms of snow research, one of  

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the big ones is how accessible the mountains are. 
We're only 15 miles from the campus, and so we can  

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get folks into the winter environment relatively 
easily. Snow impacts both Boise and Idaho because  

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in this part of the world our water supply comes 
primarily from the seasonal snow cover. About 70  

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of our water each year comes from the snow that 
falls in the mountains, and that's important  

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both for water resources, for recreation, a lot 
of people use our river systems, so it's a big  

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part of the economy, for agriculture. And then 
also for hydropower. And then predicting the  

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amount of snow that we have in the mountains 
is important for flood forecasting as well.

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Kraft: We are digging a snow pit. So we 
dig one in the open and one in the forest,  

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and within the snow pit we measure 
the different layers of the snowpack,  

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and then in each layer we look 
at the snow crystal types,  

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as well as the size of the snow crystals. 
And then we measure the density of the snow  

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and measure the liquid water content. So we're 
looking at how much water is in the snowpack.

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Marshall: So a lidar system measures the 
height of the snow, and this specific system  

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we're working with Silverhawk Aviation out of 
Caldwell, and it's allowing us to very quickly  

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integrate that instrument and then fly on about 
24 hours’ notice. What we're really finding is  

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that the solution to the snow problem is going to 
require field measurements like we're doing today,  

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remote sensing like the helicopter that flew 
over today and the satellites that are timed  

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to overpass our site, and combining the models, 
the remote sensing and the ground measurements.  

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All three of those pieces are very critical. Snow 
is a relatively new science and so a lot of the  

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problems that we tackle are questions that that a 
lot of people haven't actually looked at before.  

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And what that means for I think students is that 
it's much easier to make an impact than in some  

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of these other fields that have been studied 
for hundreds and hundreds of years. Vuyovich:  

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NASA’s interest in in studying snow, there are a 
number of different objectives. So you know from  

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the water resources side, snow is in incredibly 
important. And in the western United States,  

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a lot of the water resources come from snow. In 
other areas, it's hydropower. It provides some  

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infiltration into the soil, so for agriculture. It 
also feeds into some climate change questions. How  

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the snowpack is changing, how does that 
influence the energy balance of the Earth.