Convective rainfall estimation from MSG/SEVIRI data based on different development phase duration of convective systems (growth phase and decay phase)

Convective precipitation events from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) in northern Algeria during April 2006 to October 2006 are analyzed. This manuscript puts forward an improved method of precipitation estimation, named Cold Cloud Phase Duration (CCPD), which is based on different development phase duration (growth and decay phases) of convective cloud cluster to overcome the obvious deficiency of the present commonly used CCD (Cold Cloud Duration) method for satellite remote sensing estimation of convective precipitation. The life cycle phase of a given convective cloud (growth-decay) is evaluated through the different internal dynamics of cloud. The CCPD analyzes the evolution of three parameters; namely the average of cloud top temperature, the vertical extent of cloud and cloud water path to identify different phases of life cycle of convective clouds. Then, rain rates are assigned to each phase type by using rain gauge data. The evaluation of the CCPD method was performed by comparison with rain gauge data collected during April 2010 to October 2010. The results reveal that CCPD performs better compared to the original CCD method. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.