Satellite-based precipitation products

• Characteristics
• Downloading

Satellite-based precipitation products provide precipitation depth or intensity from satellite imagery alone or combined with ground data. Products differ according to many factors like satellite instruments, spatial and temporal resolution, latency, and algorithm used.

Precipitation products can be automatically downloaded and post-processed. Post-process consists basically of clipping, resampling, creating zonal statistics for sub-basin (or regional) precipitation, as well as extracting precipitation values to points. The main objective is to obtain for each product time series for sub-basins and points. The points typically coincide with the location of ground stations and are used to compare satellite products with ground data.

The procedures can be be used once or run as background process for operational purposes, like for flood forecast or irrigation scheduling. Downloaded data is saved locally on the hard-disk. It mirrors the providers’ folder structure.

Procedures are implemented for the following family of products:

• ARC2 Africa
• ARC2 Asia
• RFE2
• CHIRPS
• CMORPH
• QMORPH
• TRMM
• GPM