Sierra Snow Cover 2017 Poster

20.8"x50.8" Award-winning student map for design at the 2017 North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) conference. The early months of 2017 marked the highest snow cover levels for the Sierra Nevada Range in more than a decade. The snow land cover class on this map was created from Landsat 8 imagery collected between January 1st and March 30th. This data was used to create false-colour images that highlight areas of snow that were then extracted and used as a masking layer in photoshop. This map captures the dramatic increase in snow cover while only attempting to portray the breathtaking beauty of the Sierra Nevada. Additional details from the cartographer: I used a lightened swiss hillshade style relief, with isolated light blue shadowing on the areas of snow to give it a little more "frosty-ness". The most difficult part of this map was making sure the snow cover had some textual dimension, instead of just appearing as a white blanket placed on top of some trees. For this, I added a slight gradient map in photoshop to distinguish snow covered areas at high elevations versus those at lower elevations. I also included additional texturing in areas where tree cover and snow cover intersected. A lot of hours, tears, love and joy went into this map. Handle it with care and have fun exploring a landscape that's is so near and dear to most of our hearts! Feel free to message me with any questions, concerns or updates about this map: nadouglass@humboldt.edu