Near Real-Time (NRT)

"GPM data products can be divided into two groups (near real-time and production) depending on how soon they are created after the satellite collects the observations. For applications such as weather, flood, and crop forecasting that need precipitation estimates as soon as possible, near real-time data products are most appropriate.  GPM near real-time (GMI & DPR) products are generally available within a few hours of observation.  For all other applications, production data products are generally the best data sets to use because additional or improved inputs are used to increase accuracy.  These other inputs are only made available several days, or in some cases, several months, after the satellite observations are taken, and the production data sets are computed after all data have arrived, making possible a more careful analysis." (NASA, n.d.)

Sources

NASA. n.d. “What Is the Difference between ‘Near Real-Time’ (NRT) and ‘Production’ / ‘Research’ Data?” Accessed August 13, 2025. https://gpm.nasa.gov/resources/faq/what-difference-between-near-real-ti….

 

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Project / Mission / Initiative / Community Portal

GloFAS Global Flood Monitoring

In 2021, a new operational, near real-time global flood monitoring (GFM) was integrated into GloFAS. The GFM product is part of the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service and is operated by EODC. The new GFM provides a continuous monitoring of floods worldwide by immediately processing and analyzing all incoming Copernicus Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite data. Being a fully automated system, one of the strengths of the GFM is the high timeliness of its products.