USGS LiDAR progress in Wyoming 2026-04-07 - more LiDAR elevation source data
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Glenn Borkenhagen
Apr 8, 2026, 8:55:14 AMApr 8
to Wyoming Geospatial Organization
Greetings to WyGeo -
The USGS recently released some more aerial LiDAR point cloud (LPC) and original product resolution (OPR) digital-elevation-model (DEM) tiles for Wyoming.
New coverage is of about 2,350 square miles of central Carbon County, including the communities of Medicine Bow, Elk Mountain, Hanna, Saratoga, Encampment, and Riverside. Also included is a small sliver of Albany County.
A georeferenced PDF map showing the area of the latest releases is available here. The red area on that map was published on Tuesday 07 April 2026.
The data was collected from July 2024 through May 2025. These tiles are Quality Level 1 (QL1) data, the highest quality typically provided by USGS.
Right now the darker-green QL1 coverage area does not appear on the images currently provided at The National Map Download and USGS _ LidarExplorer when you click on "Show" but that should change in the next few days.
As of this writing (morning of Wednesday 08 April), neither of the generally easy-to-use sources in the previous paragraph seem to have this new data available. They usually have the data available for downloading soon after release, before it appears on their respective maps.
The coverage area already has QL2 LPC coverage from previous projects, so if you want to use the latest higher-quality data and use the selection methods provided at The National Map Download make sure "WY Southeast D24" appears in the name(s) of the tile(s) because those selection methods will get all data for an area regardless of the project. It may make more sense to use one of the selection methods from the next paragraph, especially if it is desired to download all the new data.
If someone is anxious to begin using the new data, it is available from the USGS Rockyweb server (step-by-step instructions are here) and Amazon Web Services (AWS - step-by-step instructions are here). On Wednesday 08 April 2026 both the LPC and OPR data was available via both of those methods.
To facilitate use of those sources -
The project is "WY_Southeast_D24"
The work unit is "WY_Southeast_4_D24" both without the quotes.
Product-level raster (GeoTIFF) one-meter 10-km x 10-km digital elevation models (DEMs) are not yet available for this new data. Generally USGS delays issuing new product-level DEMs until after all LPCs and OPRs in a project are completed and released.
This project is called "2024 USGS Wyoming Southeast Lidar" on the US Interagency Elevation Inventory webpage.
Regards,
Glenn Borkenhagen
Cody, Wyoming
307-272-5044
gl...@inlandgps.com
The USGS recently released some more aerial LiDAR point cloud (LPC) and original product resolution (OPR) digital-elevation-model (DEM) tiles for Wyoming.
New coverage is of about 2,350 square miles of central Carbon County, including the communities of Medicine Bow, Elk Mountain, Hanna, Saratoga, Encampment, and Riverside. Also included is a small sliver of Albany County.
A georeferenced PDF map showing the area of the latest releases is available here. The red area on that map was published on Tuesday 07 April 2026.
The data was collected from July 2024 through May 2025. These tiles are Quality Level 1 (QL1) data, the highest quality typically provided by USGS.
Right now the darker-green QL1 coverage area does not appear on the images currently provided at The National Map Download and USGS _ LidarExplorer when you click on "Show" but that should change in the next few days.
As of this writing (morning of Wednesday 08 April), neither of the generally easy-to-use sources in the previous paragraph seem to have this new data available. They usually have the data available for downloading soon after release, before it appears on their respective maps.
The coverage area already has QL2 LPC coverage from previous projects, so if you want to use the latest higher-quality data and use the selection methods provided at The National Map Download make sure "WY Southeast D24" appears in the name(s) of the tile(s) because those selection methods will get all data for an area regardless of the project. It may make more sense to use one of the selection methods from the next paragraph, especially if it is desired to download all the new data.
If someone is anxious to begin using the new data, it is available from the USGS Rockyweb server (step-by-step instructions are here) and Amazon Web Services (AWS - step-by-step instructions are here). On Wednesday 08 April 2026 both the LPC and OPR data was available via both of those methods.
To facilitate use of those sources -
The project is "WY_Southeast_D24"
The work unit is "WY_Southeast_4_D24" both without the quotes.
Product-level raster (GeoTIFF) one-meter 10-km x 10-km digital elevation models (DEMs) are not yet available for this new data. Generally USGS delays issuing new product-level DEMs until after all LPCs and OPRs in a project are completed and released.
This project is called "2024 USGS Wyoming Southeast Lidar" on the US Interagency Elevation Inventory webpage.
Regards,
Glenn Borkenhagen
Cody, Wyoming
307-272-5044
gl...@inlandgps.com
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