FAQs

The registration, as well as all data accessible by H-SAF website, are completely free of charge. Registered users are able to receive news and periodic updates on H-SAF (news on products characteristics, on program events, on training courses), and will be able to have access to restricted sections of the website as "H-SAF Download Data Centre" in order to have access to all H-SAF downloadable products. Furthermore, registration is necessary to access to dedicated tools (i.e.: the MapTool, for plotting a set of products on the Google Map) and to receive support on H-SAF products.

Once completed the registration process, you will get an account through which you can access to the "H-SAF Download Centre". This will allow you to directly access to the H-SAF FTP server (ftphsaf.meteoam.it) from which you can download H-SAF products and PNG images generated in the last 60 days. Furthermore, the "H-SAF Download Centre" allows you to access to the archived products (older than 60 days) by means of an order-based facility. In addition H-SAF products are distributed directly by EUMETSAT trough EUMETCast (NRT distribution) and UMARF (archived products) services. The H-SAF data are freely distributed. However, when using these data in a publication, we request that the following acknowledgement be given : « These data were obtained from the H-SAF operated by EUMETSAT (Darmstadt, Germany) ».

All products daily generated are collected and are downloadable through the H-SAF FTP server. All products older than 60 days (generated 60 days before today) are deleted from the FTP server and stored in a permanent archive not accessible by FTP connection. The access to stored data is possible by submitting an order accessing to the proper page (http://hsaf.meteoam.it/download-products/download-products-order.php). It is possible to submit a maximum of 10 orders per day for a total maximum size of 20GB.

The PNG-Files are not stored into permanent archive. PNG-Files are available only for the last 60 days, after this period of time the images will be permanently deleted. It is noted that it in case of need it is possible to generate the relevant image starting from original binary files.

Each product is associated to an operational state following the EUMETSAT guidelines. Here below the list of product’s state and their definition:

• Operational: products with documented non-relevant limitations that largely satisfy the requirements applicable and/or have been considered by the relevant Steering Group mature enough for distribution to users
• Pre-Operational:Products with documented limitations that are able to satisfy the majority of applicable requirements and/or have been considered by the relevant Steering Group suitable for distribution to users
• Development: Products that are in development and not yet available to users
• Demonstrational: products that are provided to users without any commitment on the quality or availability of the service and have been considered by the relevant Steering Group to be useful to be disseminated in order to enabling users to test the product and to provide feedback
• Auxiliary Product: not operational products; for internal/auxiliary/research/development use

You can access the H-SAF documentation by accessing the top menu items "Documents" and "Quality Monitoring".
The "Documents" menu provides access to:

• "HSAF-Brochure";
• "User Documents" with ATBDs (Algorithm Theoretical Baseline Document), PUMs (Product User Manual) and PVRs (Product Validation Report) for each operational and pre-operational products;
• "Visiting Scientist" with the related reports organized by category (precipitation, soil moisture and snow) and sorted by country and publication date;
• "Scientific Papers" with a selection of publications.

• "Quality monitoring and assessment service" with a description of the products validation programme as the structure of validation group, Institutes and countries involved, main commitments…;
• "Case studies" with all the reports organized by category (precipitation, soil moisture and snow) and sorted by country and publication date.

Please, Access to the H-SAF FTP server (registration required) and enter into directory "utilities" that contains some tools developed in order to simplify the reading/decoding of precipitation products in both BUFR and GRIB formats. More in detail, The "utilities" directory contains two sub-directories:

1. "bufr_decode": with all you need to decode BUFR file format for products H01nr and H02Anr (instructions in "Bufr_use.doc") ;
2. "Grib_decode": with all you need to decode GRIB file format for products H03A, H04A, H05A, H06, H15A (instructions in "README.doc")

All the instructions to read H14 (SM-DAS-2) coded in GRIB format can be found here (link kindly provided by ECMWF).

All the instructions to read the soil moisture products coded in BUFR format as H08, H16, H101, H102 and H103 can be found in the PUM of H08 (for FORTRAN users, see Annex 2) and/or here (for Python users – link kindly provided by TuWien).