Rainfall Rates from the GOES-R Series

Abstract Satellites have been used for decades to estimate rainfall over extensive data-sparse areas. While rain gauges directly measure rainfall and radar provides high-resolution estimates of rainfall for limited areas, only satellites provide global-scale rainfall information that does not depend on an instrument (rain gauge or radar) being available on the ground. The improved spatial resolution and additional channels on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)-R Series Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) represent a step forward in estimating rain rate from geostationary orbit. The GOES-R Series provides estimates of rainfall every 10 min for the entire full disk at the full spatial resolution of the ABI IR bands (2 km at nadir). This chapter briefly provides the context for estimating rain rates from satellite data, describes the measurement approach, and summarizes the current performance of the rain rate algorithm.