Weather type dependent quality assessment of a satellite-based rainfall detection scheme for the mid-latitudes

The sensitivity of a recently published satellite-based rainfall detection scheme with differing frontal weather regimes is investigated for 676 precipitation scenes between January and August 2004. For this purpose, the rain area classified by the recent Rain Area Delineation Scheme during Night time (RADS-N) was compared to the rain area detected by the radar network of the German Weather Service. The validation results indicate that the rain area detected by RADS-N is highly consistent with the radar network (mean POD: 0.62; mean FAR: 0.52; mean ETS: 0.22). However, the bias indicates a mean overestimation of 42%. The classification results show that the satellite technique performs better in cold frontal situations and thunderstorms. Therefore, further investigations are needed to address the overall performance as well as the dependency on different weather situations and in order to allow reliable rain area detection during night-time, independent of the prevailing weather situation.