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Too much or too little rainfall can have significant impacts on populations around the world. As population and global temperatures increase, it is crucial to understand what locations will become more vulnerable to extreme rainfall and drought and the subsequent natural hazards (e.g., landslides) and risks (e.g., lose of property) they impose. Satellites allow us to monitor changes in the precipitation, especially over oceans and regions where ground-based data are sparse. With its near-real-time precipitation estimates and near global coverage, GPM serves as an essential tool for assessing

Precipitation extremes, from heavy rainfall to droughts, pose great risks to a country’s economic development and human health. Standing water and flooding resulting from heavy rainfall has created societal vulnerabilities to vector and waterborne disease outbreaks such as malaria, schistosomiasis, cholera, and chikungunya, among others. Drought and extreme heat conditions have been associated with a wide range of health hazards including degraded air and water quality. These meteorological extremes also impact the growth of cities such as damaging transportation networks and infrastructures

Water is fundamental to life on Earth, affecting the behavior of the weather, climate, energy and ecological systems as water moves through the Earth’s water cycle as vapor, liquid and ice. Precipitation, a key component of the water cycle, is difficult to measure since rain and snow vary greatly in both space and time. Obtaining reliable ground-based measurements of rain and snow often presents a formidable challenge due to large gaps between reliable instruments over land and, particularly, over the oceans. From the vantage point of space, satellites provide more frequent and accurate observations and measurements of rain and snow around the globe. This allows key insights into when, where and how much it rains or snows globally, supplying vital information to unravel the complex roles water plays in Earth systems.

Precipitation data from the GPM and TRMM missions are made available free to the public in a variety of formats from several sources at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This section outlines the different types of data available, the levels of processing, the sources to download the data, and some helpful tips for utilizing precipitation data in your research.

NASA’s Precipitation Measurement Missions consist of TRMM and GPM. The Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) is an international satellite mission launched by NASA and JAXA on Feb. 27th, 2014 that is setting new standards for precipitation measurements worldwide. Using a network of satellites united by the GPM Core Observatory, GPM expands on the legacy of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM, 1998 - 2015) by providing high quality estimates of Earth’s rainfall and snowfall every 30 minutes.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission has several cross-cutting application areas which contribute to and enhance our understanding of weather forecasting, disasters, ecology, health, water and agriculture and energy. Using advanced space-borne instruments, GPM measures light rain to heavy rain and falling snow, producing a near-global view of precipitation every 30 minutes. Through improved measurements of rain and snow, precipitation data from the GPM mission is used by a diverse range of applications and user communities at local to global scales to inform decision making and policy that directly benefits society.