News

Snow products "Snow Cover" (H31) and "EPS Daily Snow Cover" (H32) have been declared operational. The products are generated in cooperation with LSA SAF and are currently available in the snow cover section of LSA SAF website and are available for downloading through the LSA SAF ftp server; they are also distributed via EUMETCast.

The International Remote Sensing School for Hydrological Applications is organized in Rome, on 13-16 November 2018, in the framework of the H SAF project by the Italian Civil Protection Department in close collaboration with the Italian Air Force Meteorological Service Department. The key objective of this training is to instruct active and future users from Meteo-Hydrological Institutes and/or from research and operational environments in the application of the satellite-based soil moisture products generated by H SAF. The training course will be structured in theoretical lessons on the H SAF products, exercise and discussion sessions on a proper utilization of the H SAF products in an operational environment. For further details see the announcement.

5th Soil Moisture Workshop, 24-25 October 2018 at George Mason University, Fairfax Campus (Washington DC area) USA This Soil Moisture Workshop series focuses on technical advances in the development, validation and application of global integrated soil moisture products that utilize satellite observations. The 5th workshop will emphasize soil moisture applications and bring together satellite, in situ, and model-based soil moisture information developers and users to focus on the derivation, validation and exploitation of soil moisture data from both passive and active microwave satellite missionsand electro-optical instruments. This upcoming workshop emphasizes the importance of integrated soil moisture data for meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, energy and ecological applications, such as for monitoring and early warning systems, modeling tools, and predictive and feedback capabilities. The scope of the 5th Soil Moisture Workshop includes:

• (1) Applications in Agriculture and Food Security;
• (2) Applications in Hydrology and Water Security;
• (3) Satellite Product Validation;
• (4) Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Soil Moisture; and
• (5) The Soil Moisture Demonstration Project (SMDP).

Capacity building is fundamental to all societal applications of integrated soil moisture datasets and will be addressed at the workshop. The SMAP Cal/Val workshop is also scheduled for 22-23, October 2018 at George Mason University, Fairfax Campus as well. Abstract submission deadline is June 30, 2018. Selected papers will be published in peer review journals.
The SMW2018 website: genri.gmu.edu/smw2018.
See details in the flyer.

We would like to inform you about the following product naming correspondence, valid starting from 12 April :
H SAF product H16 corresponds to the EUMETSAT files Metop-B ASCAT soil moisture 12.5 km sampling NRT;
H SAF product H103 corresponds to EUMETSAT files Metop-B ASCAT soil moisture 25 km sampling NRT;
H SAF product H101 corresponds to EUMETSAT files Metop-A ASCAT soil moisture 12.5 km sampling NRT;
H SAF product H102 corresponds to EUMETSAT files Metop-A ASCAT soil moisture 25 km sampling NRT;

Products H111 "Metop ASCAT DR2017 SSM time series 12.5 km sampling" (coverage 2007/01/01 - 2016/12/31) and H112 "Metop ASCAT DR2017 EXT SSM time series 12.5 km sampling" have been released. The products are currently available in the soil moisture section of H-SAF website and are available for downloading through the H-SAF ftp server.

Precipitation product PR-OBS-4 (H04) "Precipitation rate at ground by LEO/MW supported by GEO/IR (with flag for phase)" produced until September 4th, 2017 has been retired. The archived production can be obtained by placing an order, see the Download Products section.

We would like to inform that the generation and dissemination of H-SAF precipitation products is returning back to nominal conditions. The products are also being made available on H-SAF FTP site.

We are sorry to inform that due to technical problems the H-SAF precipitation products generation is experiencing an outage; the issue is under investigation and further communication will inform about the recovery of the nominal service and the provision of the missing products. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The precipitation product PR-OBS-3 (H03 - Precipitation rate at ground by GEO/IR supported by LEO/MW), currently distributed via EUMETCast and H-SAF FTP, will be updated on 18th of May 2017. The new output will include the associated quality flag encoded in grib2 format. For more details, please see the product''s documentation.

Products SM-DAS-3 (H27) " Soil Wetness Index in the roots region by ERS/SCAT and Metop ASCAT-A scatterometer assimilation in a Land Data Assimilation System" have been released. The products are currently available in the soil moisture section of H-SAF website and are available for downloading through the H-SAF ftp server