Webinar 23 - ASCAT soil moisture observations for rainfall & drought monitoring

In this webinar, Prof. Wolfgang Wagner will introduce the ASCAT soil moisture data services provided by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility in Support of Operational Hydrology and Water Management (H-SAF) and the Copernicus Land Monitoring Services, and I will discuss recent studies that have used these data to monitor extreme rainfall and drought conditions in Africa. One rainfall-related study was conducted by Taylor et al. (2026), who used the H-SAF ASCAT surface soil moisture dataset to show that extreme thunderstorms develop rapidly when surface winds driven by soil moisture gradients blow in the opposite direction to higher-altitude winds. As extreme precipitation events are becoming more frequent, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the conditions under which such thunderstorms form. Several studies related to drought have been carried out within the DrySat project funded by the Austrian Development Agency, which aims to enhance drought early warning in Mozambique by using satellite soil moisture data to support food security (e.g. Villegas-Lituma et al., 2026). These studies show that the H SAF ASCAT soil moisture data released in summer 2025 significantly improves the ability to detect drought conditions compared to earlier versions of the H SAF data.