Like most weather events, there’s no single way to map or tell stories about snow. You can map snowfall (or accumulation) in a period to show the impacts of a storm. For longer-term trends, you can map snowpack in terms of snow water equivalence. A less common approach involves snow depth, which is a measure of snow on the ground at a given time.
This pair of maps from Lauren Tierney at Esri explore snow depth data for January 2025. Both of them use an engaging, neon pink-to-teal color ramp on snow depth data from the Snow Data Assimilation System.
Mapping snow depth can tell a variety of stories. The snow depth map of Oregon highlights the relationship between elevations and snow. A hillshade shows the varied terrain of the Beaver State, including its mountain ranges. The map glows brightest along the vertical spine of the Cascade Range. The Blue Mountains in Northeast Oregon also show greater snow depth.
The multistate map shows the mark that 2025’s first major snowstorm left across several states. By orienting the map in a short but wide layout, we can see how the storm traveled across the country. From Kansas to West Virginia, there’s an almost unbroken band where the storm dropped most of its snow. Lower totals radiate out from high-snow-depth areas. You can also see traces of terrain on this map in the blues and purples of the Appalachian range winding through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It’s both an impact and a topographic story. And all of it is made possible by an exquisite and intentionally designed color ramp.
More to Explore
- Learn how Tierney created custom color ramps for these maps.
- Discover more maps about snowpack and seasonal snowfall.
