Visible and infrared techniques for flash flood, hydrological, and agricultural applications

A common requirement of these agriculture, climatology and hydrology fields is the accurate and timely estimation of precipitation. Yet, it is often difficult to obtain such estimates by conventional means. The advent of satellite remote sensing however has opened the possibility of making rain estimates over time and space scale never before available. A computer automated technique that estimates a summertime convective rainfall from the thermal infrared imagery of geosynchronous satellites is reviewed.