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How does GPM advance satellite estimates of precipitation?

GPM's predecessor the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) measured heavy to moderate rain over tropical and subtropical oceans. GPM provides advanced measurements, including coverage over medium to high latitudes, improved estimates of light rain and snowfall, advanced estimates over land and ocean, and coordination of radar and radiometer (passive and active microwave) retrievals to unify and refine precipitation estimates from a constellation of research and operational satellites. GPM also provides more frequent observations, every 3 hours.

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What precipitation information does GPM provide?

GPM measures precipitation globally; over the land and ocean, in both the tropics, mid-latitudes, and cold locations near the poles over a latitude band of 65ºN-65ºS. GPM measures both light, heavy, and frozen precipitation including the microphysical properties of precipitation particles. This wide range of locations and precipitation types presents a host of challenges not encountered by TRMM, which only measured moderate to heavy rainfall in the tropics.

GPM Sees Cyclone Harold in the South Pacific

GPM Overpass of Cyclone Harold from April 6th, 2020
Friday, April 10, 2020
Video credit: Greg Shirah, Kel Elkins, Alex Kekesi (NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio). For more information or to download this public domain video, go to: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4812#29226 A Category 4 cyclone, the most powerful yet of 2020, made landfall on the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu on Monday, not long before this GPM overpass from April 6th, 2020 at 1:41 UTC. Tropical Cyclone Harold developed from a low pressure system that was observed to the east of Papua New Guinea last week, and has tracked to the southeast, where it has already caused flooding and loss of life...
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GPM Core Observatory

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Friday, March 27, 2020
The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite operates in low Earth orbit, carrying two instruments for measuring Earth's precipitation and serving as a calibration standard for other members of the GPM satellite constellation. The satellite was developed and tested in-house at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and launched from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, on February 27th, 2014. The GPM Core Observatory orbits Earth at an inclination of 65 degrees, which enables it to cut across the orbits of other microwave radiometers and sample the latitudes where nearly all precipitation occurs. A non-sun-synchronous orbit that takes it around Earth roughly 16 times per day allows it to sample precipitation at different times of the day. Data is transmitted continuously to ground systems on Earth by the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) communications network.
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Drought and the Australia Wildfire Season

IMERG rainfall totals from Australia in November 2019
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Droughts and dry, arid conditions are naturally occurring phenomena in Australia. Such an environment is conducive to wild fires, which are started mainly by lightning and can occur throughout the year, but typically emerge between October and April and are most prevalent during the Southern Hemisphere summer; they are part of the seasonal cycle in Australia. However, some years are worse than others, and the 2019-2020 wild fire season was especially bad. It has been estimated that upwards of 46 million acres were burned, or roughly the size of the entire state of Washington. In terms of area...
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