News

H SAF funded a Visiting Scientist Activity (VSA) within the User Promotion and Outreach Cluster. The topic is related to H SAF data easy access and handling tools and the activity will be carried out during the period May 2023 – Jan 2024 under the supervision of Luca Ciabatta (CNR-IRPI). The activity aims at developing tools and guidelines for the access and preprocessing of H SAF data in an open-source framework. It is foreseen a short period at CNR-IRPI premises in Perugia. Further information regarding the application procedure, requirements, salary and activity can be found in the documentation.

Dear users,
an issue has been found with the contact form for registered users. We are working to fix it as soon as possible. We invite you to use in the meantime the email address showed in the Contact Us section. We apologize for the temporary inconvenient.

UPDATE

The issue with the contact form for registered users has been resolved. Authenticated users can again rely on the contact form.

Dear users, we inform you that, product H120 SSM ASCAT DR2021 EXT TS12.5 has been updated and it now covers the period (2021-01-01 until 2022-10-05).

H SAF products monitored in real time the development of strong thunderstorms on 8th Semptember 2022 over three italian regions. The H SAF Case study is published on EUMETSAT Webpage: Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) over central Italy.

Dear users,
the parallel dissemination of products:

• H05B - Accumulated precipitation at ground by blended MW+IR
• H03B - Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW
• H15 - Blended SEVIRI Convection area/ LEO MW Convective Precipitation

will continue till the 31st of January 2023 before being officially discontinued.

The Data record Metop ASCAT DR2021 SSM time series 12.5 km sampling (H119) has been released and covers the period 01-01-2007 – 31-12-2020.

The Offline product "Metop ASCAT DR2021EXT SSM time series 12.5 km sampling" corresponding to the extension of data record SSM ASCAT DR2021 TS12.5 (H119), has been released.

Dear users,
after the start of the Full dissemination of the new precipitation products

• H60B- Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation and morphologic information
• H61B- Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR

the parallel dissemination of products:

• H05B - Accumulated precipitation at ground by blended MW+IR
• H03B - Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW
• H15 - Blended SEVIRI Convection area/ LEO MW Convective Precipitation

will continue till a date that will announced in the next days before being officially discontinued

Today the EUMETCast Full dissemination of the following precipitation products has started and they are now officially released:

• P-AC-SEVIRI_E - Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR over IODC area
• P-IN-PMW - Gridded MW instantaneous precipitation rate based on intercalibrated PMW instantaneous precipitation rate
• P-AC-SM2RAIN - Precipitation/Soil Moisture integrated product
• P-AC-SEVIRI-PMW - Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR
• P-IN-SEVIRI-PMW - Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation estimates

The EUMETCast Full dissemination of the Operational precipitation product H60 (P-IN-SEVIRI-PMW) will start the 09/06/2022.

The H SAF H60 product (P-IN-SEVIRI-PMW) is the Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation estimates. Instantaneous precipitation maps are generated combining geostationary (GEO) IR images from operational geostationary satellites calibrated by precipitation measurements from MW images on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, processed soon after each acquisition of a new image from GEO. A separate treatment is performed for convective precipitation: the morphologic information and the enhancement of precipitation estimate is done by the use of NEFODINA software.

The EUMETCast Full dissemination of the Pre-Operational Precipitation product H61 (P-AC-SEVIRI-PMW) will start the 09/06/2022.

The H SAF H61 product (P-AC-SEVIRI-PMW) is the Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR. H61B integrates the instantaneous precipitation maps generated by P-IN-SEVIRI-PMW product (based on inter-calibrated Level 2 PMW instantaneous precipitation rate estimates blended with 10.8 μm channel from SEVIRI instrument). The integration is performed providing hourly the 1 hour accumulated precipitation and every six hours (at 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC) the 24 hour accumulated precipitation. The "Pre-Operational" status is justified by the following limitation affecting the H61B product: the instantaneous product that combines the PMW precipitation estimation with GEO IR channel products on boxes of 2.5° in geographical latitude and longitude, and H61B (the integration) could accentuate discontinuities between adjacent boxes. The problem is currently under resolution.

The EUMETCast Full dissemination of the Operational Precipitation product H60 (P-IN-SEVIRI_E) will start the 09/06/2022.

The H SAF H63 product (P-IN-SEVIRI_E) is the Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation estimates over IODC area.

Instantaneous precipitation maps are generated combining geostationary (GEO IODC) IR images from operational geostationary satellites calibrated by precipitation measurements from MW images on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, processed soon after each acquisition of a new image from GEO IODC. A separate treatment is performed for convective precipitation: the morphologic information and the enhancement of precipitation estimate is done by the use of NEFODINA software.

The EUMETCast Full dissemination of the Operational Precipitation product H64 (P-AC-SM2RAIN) will start the 09/06/2022.

The H SAF H64 product (P-AC-SM2RAIN) is the Precipitation/Soil Moisture integrated product. This products provides Gridded daily precipitation obtained by merging soil moisture-derived rainfall, obtained through the application of SM2RAIN to the SSMASCAT-A/B-NRT-O12.5 (H16 and H101, H104) soil moisture products, with the H-AUX-23 or H-AUX-67 rainfall estimates.

The EUMETCast Full dissemination of the Operational Precipitation product H68 (P-IN-PMW will start the 09/06/2022.The H SAF H68 product (P-IN-PMW) is the Gridded MW instantaneous precipitation rate based on intercalibrated PMW instantaneous precipitation rate estimates on extended H SAF area. This is a Level 3 product providing gridded MW precipitation rate at regular time intervals. It is based on instantaneous precipitation rate estimates available from P-IN-SSMIS (H01), P-IN-MHS (H02B), P-IN-ATMS (H18), H-AUX-17, H-AUX-20, combined and intercalibrated. For each 30 minute time interval, all orbits of LEO satellite carrying PMW radiometers (SSMIS, AMSR-2, GMI, ATMS, AMSU/MHS) available over the MSG extended H SAF area are considered, to provide one unique precipitation rate estimate in each grid-box.

The EUMETCast Full dissemination of the Pre-Operational precipitation product H90 (P-AC-SEVIRI_E) will start the 09/06/2022.

The H SAF H90 product (P-AC-SEVIRI_E) is the Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR over IODC area.

H90 integrates the instantaneous precipitation maps generated by P-IN-SEVIRI-E product (based on inter-calibrated Level 2 PMW instantaneous precipitation rate estimates blended with 10.8 μm channel from SEVIRI IODC instrument). The integration is performed providing hourly the 1 hour accumulated precipitation and every six hours (at 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC) the 24 hour accumulated precipitation.

The "Pre-Operational" status is justified by the following limitation affecting the H63 product: the instantaneous product that combines the PMW precipitation estimation with GEO IR channel products on boxes of 2.5° in geographical latitude and longitude, and H90 (the integration) could accentuate discontinuities between adjacent boxes. The problem is currently under resolution.

Dear users,
we are pleased to announce that today the EUMETCast Full dissemination in NetCDF of the Soil Moisture product H26 (Metop ASCAT NRT Root Zone Soil Moisture Profile Index 10km resolution) starts and that the product is officially released.

The EUMETCast Full dissemination in NetCDF of the Soil Moisture product H26 (Metop ASCAT NRT Root Zone Soil Moisture Profile Index 10km resolution) „Operational“ product, will start on the 24/03/2022. This product supplies the analysed liquid soil moisture profile index for four different soil layers (covering the root zone from the surface to ~ 3metres) generated by the ECMWF soil moisture assimilation system at 24 hour time steps. It takes the heritage from H14 which was at lower resolution and longer timeliness.

The H14 (SM-DAS-2) NRT product will be discontinued in approximately one year. A specific date for the H14 discontinuation will be given in due course.

Dear users, we inform you that, the offline product H116 ASCAT SSM CDR v5 EXT 12.5 km has been updated and it now covers the period 2019-01-01 until 2021-12-31.

5th H SAF User Workshop: we would like to inform you that the abstract submission deadline has been extended to 24 December. For more info and instructions see workshop official webpage here.

The 5th H SAF User Workshop supported by EUMeTrain will be held in online mode from January 24th, 2022 to January 28th, 2022. The workshop objectives will be:

• To introduce the H SAF products and their evolutions with respect to the future European satellite missions
• The usage of satellite products for flood and drought monitoring and water resources management applications
• To present use cases of the H SAF products in hydrological applications and emergency management in various regions, including Europe and Africa
• To demonstrate how to download, process, and apply products for different goals related to water monitoring and water management applications, with examples over the European and African Regions
• H SAF products quality assessment and applications

Further infromation about the agenda, the registration and the abstract submission procedure can be found here.

EUMeTrain is going to organise an event week on the H SAF snow products from the 22nd to the 26th of November 2021.
The event week will provide an interesting insight of the H-SAF Snow products from a scientific and application-oriented point of view.
During this event, H SAF snow products retrieval, visualization, and analysis will be presented. The validation of the H SAF snow dataset and their contribution in hydrological modelling for water balance evaluation will be also discussed.
The training will use a Jupyter Notebook, which allows easy and straightforward data analysis and the possibility of live interaction.
More information about the agenda and the registration can be found here.

Dear SSM product user,
the Metop-A satellite, launched on 19 October 2006, has massively exceeded its design lifetime of five years. However, it is now time for it to retire and this action is planned for November 2021. As a result Metop-A ASCAT SSM products (H101, H102) will be discontinued. The planned end date for the Metop-A ASCAT SSM products is 15th November 2021.
We will continue to provide ASCAT SSM from Metop-B and Metop-C. More detailed information can be found on https://www.eumetsat.int/plans-metop-end-life.

Due to the permanent failure of MHS channel2 on METOP-A (EUMETSAT UNS nr. 5682 - MHS instrument: Channel 2 has been declared as failed due to the very high level of NEDT (noise).), H02B product are not based on METOP-A anymore since 26/02/2020

We are pleased to announce the 5th H SAF User Workshop supported by EUMeTrain. It will be held in online mode from January 24th, 2022 to January 28th,2022.Hydrology SAF is the satellite application facility of the EUMETSAT distributed ground segment that has the aim to provide satellite derived products related to precipitation, soil moisture and snow over land in support to hydrology and water management. In addition to satellite derived products provision H SAF provides both continuous quality assessment of products and evaluation of their hydrological impact for the benefit of the end user communities.The workshop objectives will be:

• Review of the H SAF products status and their evolution in view of the opportunities and challenges of the future European satellite missions;
• Drought monitoring and water resources management;
• H SAF products quality assessment and applications;
• Integrated approach between H SAF products and risk management;
• H SAF products use cases over African region.

Further information about the workshop programme and the registration procedure will be provided on a dedicated webpage

The H SAF snow products H34 (Snow detection by VIS/NIR of SEVIRI) and H35 (Snow detection and Effective snow cover by VIS/NIR of AVHRR) are now released in pre-operational status.

Dear users, from the 7th June 2021, products H01 (Precipitation rate at ground by MW conical scanners) and H02B (Precipitation rate at ground by MW cross-track scanners) will be disseminated only in NETCDF format. The dissemination of the BUFR format will be interrupted.

The H SAF is pleased to announce the Full dissemination for the following “Pre-Operational” Near-Real-Time products which is planned to start on 20/05/2021.

• (H34) Snow detection (snow mask) by VIS/NIR of SEVIRI, provides a binary map of snow / no-snow situation based on the acquisition of VIS/IR images from GEO;
• (H35) Snow detection (snow mask) and Effective snow cover by VIS/NIR of AVHRR, estimate of the fractional cover at resolution element level using the combined effect of fractional snow cover and other reflective contributors;

The main difference from the currently distributed H SAF “Operational” snow products (H10 and H12) is essentially that H10 and H12 cover only the Pan-European region.

The offline extension of the latest ASCAT SSM Data Record - Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Climate Data Record v5 Extension 12.5 km sampling (ASCAT SSM CDR v5 EXT 12.5 km, H116) - has been updated and covers the period 2019-01-01 until 2020-12-31

The EUMETCast Trial dissemination in NetCDF format of product H02B (Precipitation rate at ground by MW cross-track scanners) will start on the 18th February 2021. This product supplies the map of the instantaneous precipitation (mm/hr) generated from MW cross-track scanning radiometers in sun synchronous orbit. Currently processing data from AMSU-A/MHS on board European MetOp and U.S. NOAA satellites.The parallel dissemination of the BUFR format will be guaranteed until the 19th of April

The EUMETCast Trial dissemination in NetCDF format of product H01 (Precipitation rate at ground by MW conical scanners) will start on the 18th February 2021. This products supplies the map of the instantaneous precipitation (mm/hr) generated from MW conical scanning radiometers in sun synchronous orbit.The parallel dissemination of the BUFR format will be guaranteed until the 19th of April.

Due to a technical issue affecting the operative chains of products: H02B, H03B and H05; the generation of these products has undergone some outages or missing files. We are going to fix the issue. We are sorry for the inconvenient

Dear users, we inform you that, the offline product H116 ASCAT SSM CDR v5 EXT 12.5 km has been updated and it now covers the period 2019-01-01 until 2020-11-30

From 14 to 18 December, 2020 EuMeTrain in collaboration with H SAF will organize an event week on precipitation. Precipitation is the most important variable in Earth's hydrological budget, being the major component of the water cycle.The event week will be held using the Webex software and it will be open to everyone. The participants will only have to register themselves, so that they receive the links to access the sessions. The agenda and the registrations will become available in the coming weeks. You can find more details about this event at the following web page: http://eumetrain.org/

Dear users, we inform you that, the offline product H116 ASCAT SSM CDR v5 EXT 12.5 km has been updated and it now covers the period 2019-01-01 until 2020-08-31

Dear users, we inform you that, due to important maintanance of the H SAF system sheduled on the 17th and 18th September, the H SAF services could not be available. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

The Trial dissemination of the Metop-C ASCAT Soil Moisture Demonstrational products, H104 (Metop-C ASCAT Soil Moisture at 12.5 km Swath Grid) and H105 (Metop-C ASCAT Soil Moisture at 25 km Swath Grid) from H SAF started on the 09/09/2020.

The Precipitation product H18 (P-IN-ATMS) has been released and it will be now available on EUMETCast. The H SAF H18 product (P-IN-ATMS) is the Precipitation Rate at Ground by MW cross-track scanners version 3. This product represents an evolution, for ATMS applications, of the previous H02B algorithm and it is based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approach for precipitation rate estimation using AMSU/MHS observations over the MSG full disk area (60S-75N, 60W-60E).

The Soil Moisture products H141 and H142 are now available again on the H SAF ftp. A post processing error has been corrected and users are advised to download the current version of the products. We apologise for the inconvenience

Dear users, due to a post processing error on Soil-Moisture products H141 and H142, these products will not be available on the H SAF FTP. The corrected data records will be uploaded and available again by the 31st of July. We apologise for the inconvenience

The offline extension of the latest ASCAT SSM Data Record - Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Climate Data Record v5 Extension 12.5 km sampling (ASCAT SSM CDR v5 EXT 12.5 km, H116) - has been updated and covers the period 2019-01-01 until 2020-06-30.

Dear Users, the documentation related to product H115 ASCAT SSM CDR v5 12.5 km, is available at the following links: PUM, PVR and ATBD

Dear Users, we inform you that today 18th of June from 14.30 to 16.30, due to extraordinary maintenance of HSAF infrastructure, HSAF services may not be available.We apologize for the inconvenience.

Product RZSM-DR-EXT-10 (H142) 'Scatterometer Root Zone Soil Moisture (RZSM) Data Record extension, 10km resolution' has been released for 2019. H142 is the offline extension of H141 using a consistent production algorithm to provide zone soil wetness profile index from ASCAT on Metop-A/B/C at a yearly frequency from 2019-2021. Product is available for downloading through the H SAF ftp server. Due to the current Web page service update, the user documents related to H142 are accessible only through this link: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/LDAS/H+SAF

H SAF Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) Climate Data Record (CDR) v5 12.5 km sampling product (ASCAT SSM CDR v5 12.5 km, H115) has been released and covers the period from 2007-01-01 until 2018-12-31. An offline extension - Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Climate Data Record v5 Extension 12.5 km sampling (ASCAT SSM CDR v5 EXT 12.5 km, H116) - is operationally available as well, currently covering the period 2019-01-01 until 2019-12-31. The SSM CDR products and related documentation are available for downloading through the H SAF FTP server.

Product RZSM-DR2019-10km (H141) 'Scatterometer Root Zone Soil Moisture (RZSM) Data Record 10km resolution' has been released. The product is the reprocessed data record of Root Zone Soil Moisture using consistent production algorithm to provide long time series of the root zone soil wetness profile index from ERS/SCAT for 1992-2006 and from ASCAT on Metop-A/B for 2007-2018. Product is available for downloading through the H-SAF ftp server.Due to the current Web page service update, the user documents related to H141 are accesible only through this link: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/LDAS/H+SAF

The H02B product from H SAF will be available on EUMETCast from 17 October.The H02B (PR-OBS-2) product, in BUFR format, is an upgrade to the existing H02A product. Like the H02A, it provides precipitation rates at ground by MW cross-track scanners, with the difference that it covers the Full Disc area. H02A be discontinued on the same day (17 October).

EUMeTrain is going to organise an event week on Soil Moisture products of H-SAF from 4th to 8th November 2019. During this week we will focus on topics such as demonstration of H-SAF Soil Moisture products, Flood prediction and Soil Moisture for drought monitoring. The event week will provide an interesting insight of the H-SAF Soil Moisture products from a scientific and application-oriented point of view. The lectures will be broadcasted using the WebEx Training Center platform. Each session will be comprised of 1 or 2 presentations. The duration of a complete session will be around 1 hour. A detailed time schedule along with registration for the event week will become available in October.

Product SM-DAS-DR2018-EXT (H140) 'Scatterometer Root Zone Soil Moisture (RZSM) Data Record 16km resolution' has been released. The product is the extension for the period 2015-2016 of the root-zone soil moisture data record for the period 1992-2014 (product H27 - SM-DAS-3 2017). Product is available for downloading through the H-SAF ftp server.Due to the current Web page service update, the user documents related to H140 are accesible only through this link: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/LDAS/H+SAF

We inform you that products H03A 'Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW (H SAF area)' and H05A 'Accumulated precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR (H SAF area)' will be discontinued starting from 1st April 2019, being replaced by the full disc version P-IN-SEVIRI (H03B) and P-AC-SEVIRI (H05B)