CLOUD DETECTION AND PRECIPITATION AREA DELINEATION FROM REGIONAL POLAR-ORBITING SATELLITE DATA

E. V. Volkova and A. B. Uspenskii

A threshold method of automatic classification of NOAA/AVHRR data has been developed that provides the estimation of cloud amount and delineation of precipitation zones during daylight. The tuning and testing of the technique have been carried out using the archive of synchronous satellite and ground-based syn¬optic data over the central region of European Russia for the period of May 1998 to April 2001. The error statistics of AVHRR data automatic classification are given separately for the warm and cold periods of the year. Possible improvements of the classification method are under discussion.