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Precipitation Products

Enterprise Rain Rate

The enterprise L2 Rainfall Rate product provides a numerical estimate of rainfall rate in millimeters per hour from GOES-16, GOES-18 and Himawari-9. The data format is NetCDF4, data coverage is full disk, data frequency is 10 minutes, and resolution is 2km

GOES, Himawari | Resolution: 2km | Frequency: 10 min

Hydro-Estimator Rainfall

The Hydro-Estimator (HE) algorithm combines infrared brightness temperatures to detect rainfall and calculate rainfall rates. It also incorporates data from the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) to consider factors like moisture availability, evaporation, orographic modulation, and thermodynamic profiles.


GOES | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: 15 min; 1 hr on AWIPS

Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS)

Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS). The MIRS is a one-stop resource for microwave-derived products from various polar-orbiting satellite instrument configurations. The MIRS produces advanced near-real-time operational surface and precipitation products in all-weather and over all-surface conditions using brightness temperatures from multiple microwave instruments.

MetOp, JPSS, GPM | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: Daily

Blended Total Precipitable Water

The blended TPW products merges the TPW retrievals from various satellites/sensors/algorithms, currently including MetOP-B, Metop-C, S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-19, GCOM-W1 and GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) from Global Precipitation Mission (GPM), and also Met-GPS, to provide an hourly unified global TPW map in supporting of the NWS users’ need.


MetOp, JPSS, GCOM-W1, GPM | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: Hourly

Blended Rain Rate

The blended rain rate (RR) product is produced hourly by blending together recent rain rate retrievals from passive microwave instruments on eight polar-orbiting satellites, including POES NOAA-19, NOAA-20, MetOp-B, Metop-C, S-NPP, GCOM-W1, GPM, DMSP F17 and F18. The blended RR eliminates the bias between those data sets and provides a unified, meteorologically significant rain rate field for satellite analysts and weather forecasters.

POES, MetOp, JPSS, GCOM-W1, GPM, DMSP F17 and F18 | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: Hourly

Snowfall Rate

SFR is the instantaneous liquid-equivalent snowfall rate. It is retrieved from measurements taken by passive microwave sensors aboard certain polar-orbiting satellites(Metop-B, Metop-C, SNPP, N20, N21, and GPM).


Metop, JPSS, and GPM | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: Daily

GCOM precipitation products

The AMSR-2 instrument onboard the GCOM-W1 satellite will continue Aqua/AMSR-E observations of water vapor, cloud liquid water, precipitation, sea surface temperature, sea surface wind speed, sea ice concentration, snow depth, and soil moisture. NESDIS processes GCOM-W1 data and generates NOAA unique operational products for users.

GCOM-W1 | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: Daily

Ensemble Tropical Rainfall Potential (eTRaP)

The eTRaP is a composite ensemble based on 6-hourly totals from single-orbit TRaPs. It provides deterministic and probabilistic forecasts for four 6-hour intervals and a 24-hour cumulative period.


Metop-B, Metop-C, SNPP, N20, GCOM, and GPM | Resolution: 4km | Frequency: 6 Hours