Precipitation rate at ground by blended MW and IR
Instantaneous precipitation maps generated by IR images from operational geostationary satellites “calibrated” by precipitation measurements from PMW satellite sensors in sun-synchronous orbits, processed soon after each acquisition of a new image from GEO (“Rapid Update”).
- Coverage: H SAF area extended to Africa and southern Atlantic: LAT 60°S - 67.5°N, LON 80°W - 80°E
- Cycle: 15 min
- Resolution: Resolution changes across the Full Disk from 3 km near the sub-satellite point to 8 km on average over Europe.Sampling dependent of SEVIRI IFOV
- Accuracy: 40-80 % (> 10 mm/h), 80-160 % (1-10 mm/h), not applicable for low rate (more suitable for convective precipitation)
- Timeliness: Within 5 min from the end of (real time) acquisition
- Dissemination: By dedicated lines to centres connected by GTS - By EUMETCast to most other users, especially scientific
- Formats: Primary: Values in grid points of the Meteosat projection (GRIB-2)
Short description of the basic principles for product generation
Product H03B (P-IN-SEVIRI Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW over the full disk area) is based on the IR images from the SEVIRI instrument on-board Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites. The spatial coverage of the product included the H-SAF area (Europe and Mediterranean basin) and the Africa and Southern Atlantic Ocean. Thus the new geographic region covers the MSG area correspondent to 60°S – 67.5°N, 80°W – 80°E. The extension of the spatial coverage with respect to H03A product was obtained with an update of the input parameters, but it did not require any modifications of the algorithm structure. The product is generated at the 15-min imaging rate of SEVIRI, and the spatial resolution is consistent with the SEVIRI pixel.
The P-IN-SEVIRI precipitation estimates are obtained by combining IR GEO equivalent blackbody temperatures (TBB) at 10.8 μm with rain rates from PMW measurements (P-IN-SSMIS and P-IN-MHI). The algorithm is based on an underlying collection of time and space overlapping overpasses from GEO IR imagers and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) PMW sensors, which constitutes a look up table of geolocated relationships rain rate vs TBB, updated as soon as new overlapping GEO IR and LEO PMW overpasses are available. The processing method is called “Rapid Update” (RU).