News

Dear users,

The Metop ASCAT Soil Moisture products currently generated at the EUMETSAT Central Facility, and distributed on EUMETCast, will be replaced by new, upgraded soil moisture products generated by the H SAF, as follows:

• H16 (Large-scale surface soil moisture by radar scatterometer) and H104 (Metop-C ASCAT NRT SSM orbit geometry 12.5km sampling) will be replaced by H29 (Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Near Real-Time 12.5km sampling V2).
• H103 (Metop-B ASCAT NRT soil moisture 25km sampling) and H105 (Metop-C ASCAT NRT SSM orbit geometry 25km sampling) will be replaced by H122 (Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Near Real Time 6.25km sampling).

Main changes introduced with the new products include:

• Projection on to a fixed Earth grid (6.25km for H122, 12.5km for H29) using the ASCAT Level 1b full resolution backscatter product as input. As well as dropping the coarse resolution ASCAT SSM product (25km sampling) and introducing a better spatial resolution (6.25km sampling), one of the key differences is that there is no sampling of data using swath orbit nodes. The new fixed Earth grid makes it easy to build time series without applying any resampling procedure beforehand. In addition, individual backscatter echoes provided in the ASCAT Level 1b full resolution backscatter product allow for more accurate filtering of signals coming from areas not sensitive to soil moisture changes (eg, open water, cities).
• The underlying core soil moisture retrieval algorithm — a semi-empirical change detection method — will not change. However, the estimation of the model parameters (slope/curvature, dry/wet backscatter reference) has evolved (Hahn et al., 2017, Hahn et al. 2020), and is based on a much longer backscatter time series (2007–2023) than before. The retrieval method itself is not changing, but the updated model parameters have a significant impact on the dynamics of soil moisture and its extremes, rendering the old ASCAT SSM NRT product inconsistent with the upcoming SSM NRT product.
• A more adaptive vegetation correction has been introduced by using spatially varying cross-over angles instead of static angles. In addition, the computation of the slope and curvature climatology is now based on a kernel smoother function. Moreover, long-term land cover changes are introducing trends in backscatter, eg, in areas affected by urban growth. In order to mitigate those effects, the dry/wet backscatter reference is now estimated on a yearly basis, taking data from neighbouring years into account.

Main characteristics of ASCAT SSM 6.25km (H122) and ASCAT SSM 12.5km (H29):

• Variable: Soil moisture content in the surface layer (< 5cm)
• Unit: Degree of saturation (0–100%)
• Spatial sampling/resolution: 6.25km/15x15km2 or 12.5km/25x25km2
• Spatial coverage: Global (65°S, 180°W, 80°N, 180°E)
• Timeliness: 115 min (for the NRT product) Format: netCDF4 and BUFR

It is planned that the old products will be discontinued in Q2 2025. To ensure a smooth transition for users, the new products, H29 and H122, will be distributed on EUMETCast, in parallel to the old products for a few months. More information will be provided in due course. In the meantime, sample files of the new products are available on the H SAF FTP server: ftphsaf.meteoam.it (registration on the H SAF website is required).

Dear users,

Due to some user requests, the changes in the output format for the following precipitation products:

• H60B: Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation 

• H61B: Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR

• H63: Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW IODC

• H90: Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR IODC

is postponed to the 1st of July 2025 (not the 6th May as previously announced).

• The precipitation rate values will be stored as integer values (decimillimetres rain per hour) instead of the current real values (millimetres rain per hour), having a scale factor (scale_factor) of 0.1 and an offset (add_offset) of 0.0.
• The undefined values (missing_values) are stored with the value of -99.
• In addition to the mentioned changes, in order to promote the processing and sharing of files created with the NetCDF API, the new files will be CF compliant. In this respect, we highlight the major change that will impact the operational use of the these products that is the invertion of the dimensions (y fisrt , x last).

This new format will reduce significantly the products files dimension bringing benefits in terms of NRT files download via FTP and orders placing.

The test data for format familiarisation and system testing can be accessed starting from the 15th of May from our ftp site: ftphsaf.meteoam.it/products/utilities/h60NewFormatExample (the access is for registered users only)

If you have any questions, please contact us through the H SAF Helpdesk:https://hsaf2-new.meteoam.it/support/contact-us

Dear Users, due to technical issues the distribution of the new format for precipitation products: H60B (Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation), H61B (Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR), H63 (Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW IODC) and H90 (Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR IODC); is postponed to the 6th of May.

Dear Users,

on Wednesday, 16 April 2025, 15:00 CEST (UTC+2) the TU-Wien partner in HSAF will hold the online webinar "Using the new H SAF 6.25km ASCAT soil moisture data for drought monitoring" as part of the ESA-led EO Africa project. Registration is open and free of charge.

Here the link for details and registration.

https://www.eoafrica-rd.org

https://www.eoafrica-rd.org/space-academy/webinars/#webinar20

If you have any questions, please contact us through the H SAF Helpdesk.

https://hsaf.meteoam.it/ContactUs

Dear users,

 from the 1st of May 2025 onwards, the following precipitation products:

• H60B: Blended SEVIRI / LEO MW precipitation 

• H61B: Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR

• H63: Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW IODC

• H90: Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR IODC

will be distributed with the changes as described hereafter

The precipitation rate values will be stored as integer values (decimillimetres rain per hour) instead of the current real values (millimetres rain per hour), having a scale factor (scale_factor) of 0.1 and an offset (add_offset) of 0.0.

The undefined values (missing_values) are stored with the value of -99.

This new format will reduce significantly the products files dimension bringing benefits in terms of NRT files download via FTP and orders placing.

The test data for format familiarisation and system testing can be accessed from our ftp site: ftphsaf.meteoam.it/products/utilities/h60NewFormatExample (the access is for registered users only)

If you have any questions, please contact us through the H SAF Helpdesk:https://hsaf2-new.meteoam.it/support/contact-us

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 2024-08-31).

The Snow Water Equivalent by MW radiometry product H65 (SN-SWE-HH) has been released and it will now be avaulable on EUMETCast.
The H SAF H65 product (SN-SWE-HH) is gridded MW daily SWE observation for Northern Hemisphere. H65 is extension of H13 product to full Northern Hemisphere coverage with improved error estimates added.
The product is a merge between two approaches. For flatlands and forested areas snow depth data from weather stations are used to produce a first guess that is converted into MW brightness temperatures by an emission model.
An assimilation process is then used to force the first guess field to match MW brightness temperatures from SSMIS instrument aboard DMSP 18 satellite.
For mountainous areas, look up tables are used to fix any unrealistic snow density values retrieved from assimilating the satellite observations.
The H SAF H65 daily product is made available three days after each full Hemispheric coverage by SSMIS instument.
The product is offered in EASE2 equal area scalable earth grid, offering easy summation of liquid water volume over larger areas of interest.

Dear users, we inform you that snow products H34 (Snow detection (snow mask) by VIS/NIR of SEVIRI) and H35 (Snow detection (snow mask) and Effective snow cover by VIS/NIR of AVHRR) are now operational

7^th Satellite Soil Moisture and Application Workshop

This year’s soil moisture workshop will be hosted by Michigan State University. It will take place 4-6 June 2024 in East Lansing, Michigan.
https://events.anr.msu.edu/soilmoisture

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 2024-01-04).

A Visiting Scientist Activity at Middle East Technical University, Ankara - Turkey and supported by the Finnish Meteorological Institute is available and funded by H SAF. The activity will focus on Improving the accuracy of fractional snow cover retrieval over forested mountainous regions using ML and Deep Learning algorithms. The total duration of the activity is 6 months. Further information regarding the application procedure, requirements, salary and activity can be found in the documentation. Application deadline is 28 February 2024 (or until the positions is filled)

Dear users, due to importants maintenance activities on our internal infrastructure, starting from the 25th until the 27th of October disruptions could occur to the FTP access, the products ordering service and the access to the HSAF website. We are sorry for the inconvenience

Dear users, a problem was detected in the H26 soil moisture files for 28th and 29th September 2023. The problem has been resolved and the corrupted files have now been overwritten with the correct versions. Apologies for the inconvenience

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 2023-09-01).

Dear Users, due to the limited bandwidth on the EUMETCast African channel,starting from the 12th September 2023, the IODC H SAF products:

• H63 - Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW IODC
• H90 - Accumulated Precipitation at ground by blended MW and IR IODC;

will not be distributed on Eumetcast Africa anymore.

The Data record Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Climate Data Record v7 Extension 12.5 km sampling (H120) has been updated and it now covers the period (2021-01-01 until 2023-05-31).

A Visiting Scientist Activity at TU Wien, Vienna, Austria is available and funded by H SAF. The activity will focus on developing workflows for climate normal and anomaly calculation from H SAF surface soil moisture. The activity will be carried out during the period June 2023 – May 2024 within the Soil Moisture development and Application tools clusters under the supervision of Mariette Vreugdenhil (TU Wien). Short research stays at TU Wien are foreseen. Further information regarding the application procedure, requirements, salary and activity can be found in the documentation. The open call for the Visiting Scientist activity is still open until June 15th!

The Data record Metop ASCAT Surface Soil Moisture Climate Data Record v7 Extension 12.5 km sampling (H120) has been updated and covers the period (2021-01-01 until 2023-02-01).

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.

UPDATE

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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

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