Data-driven Precipitation Nowcasting Using Satellite Imagery

Accurate precipitation forecasting is crucial for early warnings of disasters, such as floods and landslides. Traditional forecasts rely on ground-based radar systems, which are space-constrained and have high maintenance costs. Consequently, most developing countries depend on a global numerical model with low resolution, instead of operating their own radar systems. To mitigate this gap, we propose the Neural Precipitation Model (NPM), which uses global-scale geostationary satellite imagery. NPM predicts precipitation for up to six hours, with an update every hour. We input three key channels to discriminate rain clouds: infrared radiation (at a wavelength of 10.5 µm), upper- (6.3 µm), and lower- (7.3 µm) level water vapor channels. Additionally, NPM introduces positional encoders to capture seasonal and temporal patterns, reflecting variations in precipitation. Our experimental results demonstrate that NPM can predict rainfall in real-time with a resolution of 2 km.

Authors

• Young-Jae Park Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
• Doyi Kim SI Analytics, Korea
• Minseok Seo SI Analytics, Korea
• Hae-Gon Jeon Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
• Yeji Choi SI Analytics, Korea

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