Monitoring and modeling of the snow cover dynamic in Southern Germany – Capabilities of optical and microwave remote sensing

The snow cover in lower mountain areas is often a very dynamic matter. For flood forecast, but also for continuous water balance modelling, a detailed knowledge of the snow cover, its temporal dynamics and current snow properties is essential. According to this, modelling of the snow cover is a constituent part of applied water balance models. To drive and calibrate the models, spatial measurements of the land-surface parameters are necessary. Reliable information on snow conditions for catchments is not operationally available. Remote sensing methodologies, brought to an operational level, can fill this gap by providing spatial information for hydrologic modelling. Within this paper, the obtained results from operational multisensoral remote sensing of snow in Southern Germany for the Neckar area, the results from spatial snow modelling on an hourly basis and the improvements through data assimilation for improvements will be presented.