Monthly Satellite-Estimated Precipitation Reports for the Republic of the Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is a nation of more than thirty low-lying atolls and islands, most of which are inhabited, dispersed across an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) over 770,000 square miles in the tropical central North Pacific Ocean. Monitoring environmental conditions for potential drought risk is challenging in such a dispersed Island nation, and current drought hazard products provide generalities regarding conditions on a broad geographic scale. A team of USGS scientists and managers of natural resources and natural hazards in the RMI used IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM) satellite estimates of precipitation to develop content and a template for timely monthly reporting of precipitation for 23 inhabited atolls and islands in the RMI. The team finalized report content and layout in December 2022, and reports from this collaboration are available here.