On September 14-20, 2020, a Mediterranean cyclone with tropical-like characteristics, commonly known as “Medicane” swept across the South-eastern Mediterranean basin. The Medicane named Udine, according to the official denomination given by the University of Berlin, hit the coasts of Sicily and Calabria and made landfall on the western coasts of Greece on September 18th, 2020. Sixty to ninety overpasses by the microwave sensors in the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) constellation (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GPM/main/index.html) allow to characterise and monitor the evolution of the precipitation of Medicane Udine throughout its evolution over the Mediterranean Sea.
The CNR-ISAC activity within the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Support to Operational Hydrology and Water Management (H SAF) (http://hsaf.meteoam.it/) consists in developing and providing satellite precipitation products in support of Operational Meteorology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Risk Management. Two H SAF products for Medicane Udine are shown. The H67 product is a Level 3 (gridded) passive microwave (PMW) precipitation product, providing 24 hours mean precipitation rate on a regular grid (0.25° spatial resolution) based uniquely on the exploitation of MW radiometers. H67 product estimated the rainfall during the Medicane Udine showing a peak higher than 400 mm with a wide area with more than 100 mm. Moreover, the operational H03B product provides instantaneous precipitation rate generated from the geostationary MSG SEVIRI IR measurements “calibrated” by precipitation estimates from MW radiometers on board LEO satellites, processed soon after each SEVIRI acquisition (“Rapid Update”). H03B with a temporal resolution of 15 minutes and a spatial resolution of about 4 km (at the location of Medicane Udine) allows to continuously monitor the precipitation.
Contacts: Giulia Panegrossi CNR-ISAC, H SAF Science Coordinator (g.panegrossi [at] isac.cnr.it)