RAINFALL AREA IDENTIFICATION USING SATELLITE DATA

A technique is presented for determining rainfall areas through the si multaneous use of infrared and near-infrared satellite data. These dat a are a reduced-resolution version of the original AVHRR (Advanced Ver y High Resolution Radiometer) images from the satellite NOAA-12. The s cheme developed was used in order to differentiate among clear sky (or with very few clouds present), raining clouds and non-raining clouds for a mid-latitude region over Argentina. The scheme was developed by applying clustering and discriminant analysis to the maxima obtained f rom 2-dimensional histograms in the infrared and near-infrared domain. Warm-season data during daylight hours were used to develop and test the scheme. It was tested on 9 dates, and comparison of the classifica tion results with reports from ground stations was encouraging.