Assessment of Satellite Products in Estimating Tropical Cyclone Remote Precipitation over the Yangtze River Delta Region

Abstract

Satellite products have shown great potential in estimating torrential rainfall due to their wide and consistent global coverage. This study assessed the monitoring capabilities of satellite products for the tropical cyclone remote precipitation (TRP) over the Yangtze River Delta region (YRDR) associated with severe typhoon Khanun (2017) and super-typhoon Mangkhut (2018). The satellite products include the CPC MORPHing technique (CMORPH) data, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission 3B42 Version 7 (TRMM 3B42), and Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM IMERG). Eight precision evaluation indexes and statistical methods were used to analyze and evaluate the monitoring capabilities of CMORPH, TRMM 3B42, and GPM IMERG satellite precipitation products. The results indicated that the monitoring capability of TRMM satellite precipitation products was superior in capturing the spatial distribution, and GPM products captured the temporal distributions and different category precipitation observed from gauge stations. In contrast, the CMORPH products performed moderately during two heavy rainfall events, often underestimating or overestimating precipitation amounts and inaccurately detecting precipitation peaks. Overall, the three satellite precipitation products showed low POD, high FAR, low TS, and high FBIAS for heavy rainfall events, and the differences in monitoring torrential TRP may be related to satellite retrieval algorithms.