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.