Rain gauges are plentiful around the United States, but that’s not the case elsewhere in the world – particularly over oceans and sparsely populated areas.
Rain gauges are plentiful around the United States, but that’s not the case elsewhere in the world – particularly over oceans and sparsely populated areas. That means scientists and other data users have to rely on satellite measurements – such as those provided by NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission – to fill in the gaps.
The list of data users now includes the U.S. Air Force’s 557th Weather Wing. For the first time, the Air Force meteorology unit has integrated the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) algorithm into its operational weather forecasts and advisories.
“The IMERG precipitation data are an invaluable input to global land surface characterization capabilities, as well as input to numerical models,” said Maj. Kurtis A. Schubeck, chief of weather prediction and modeling strategy at the Headquarters Air Force Directorate of Weather.
NASA's IMERG product combines observations from a network of satellites affiliated with the GPM mission in order to estimate precipitation over most of Earth’s surface. Using a data blending technique, IMERG pieces together observations from several different satellites into one complete picture of global precipitation.
Read more at NASA
Photo Credit: ChristopherPluta via Pixabay
