Lightning-based propagation of convective rain fields

This paper describes a new multi-sensor approach for continuously monitoring convective rain cells. It exploits lightning data from surface networks to propagate rain fields estimated from multi-frequency brightness temperature mea- surements taken by the AMSU/MHS microwave radiometers onboard NOAA/EUMETSAT low Earth orbiting operational satellites. Specifically, the method allows inferring the devel- opment (movement, morphology and intensity) of convective rain cells from the spatial and temporal distribution of light- ning strokes following any observation by a satellite-borne microwave radiometer. Obviously, this is particularly attrac- tive for real-time operational purposes, due to the sporadic nature of the low Earth orbiting satellite measurements and the continuous availability of ground-based lightning mea- surements - as is the case in most of the Mediterranean re- gion. A preliminary assessment of the lightning-based rain- fall propagation algorithm has been successfully made by using two pairs of consecutive AMSU observations, in con- junction with lightning measurements from the ZEUS net- work, for two convective events. Specifically, we show that the evolving rain fields, which are estimated by applying the algorithm to the satellite-based rainfall estimates for the first AMSU overpass, show an overall agreement with the satellite-based rainfall estimates for the second AMSU over- pass.