TRMM_3A54: Monthly Ground Radar Rainfall Totals Map

TRMM_3A54 is a NASA product providing monthly surface rain total maps derived from ground-based radar for validating satellite observations. The maps have a 2 km horizontal resolution and cover specific validation sites, including Darwin, Houston, Kwajalein, and Melbourne. Data is quality-controlled and incorporates measurements from radar, rain gauges, and disdrometers to calculate accurate monthly totals.

Use Cases

• Validating TRMM satellite precipitation products using ground-based radar and gauge data.
• Analyzing monthly rainfall accumulation patterns at specific ground validation sites.
• Studying drop size distribution (DSD) using data from Joss-Waldvogel and Parsivel disdrometers.
• Comparing rainfall characteristics across diverse geographic sites (e.g., tropical Kwajalein vs. coastal Florida).

Strengths

• Data is quality-controlled as part of the NASA TRMM Ground Validation (GV) effort.
• Provides high-resolution (2 km) monthly rainfall maps for specific, instrumented validation sites.
• Integrates data from multiple instrument types, including radar, rain gauges, and multiple disdrometer models.

Limitations

• Spatial coverage is limited to specific ground validation sites and is not global.
• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, and exact data formats are unspecified.
• Update dates conflict between sources (2015 vs. 2026), creating uncertainty about data freshness.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) TRMM project

Collection Method

Derived from instantaneous rain rate maps (2A53) using quality-controlled data from ground-based radar, rain gauges, and disdrometers.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:39:57.203605

Geography

Primary sites: Darwin, Australia; Houston, Texas; Kwajalein, Republic of the Marshall Islands; Melbourne, Florida; and NASA Wallops Flight Facility.