Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/pmhailclim
pmhailclim·v1·dataset

Where hail happens worldwide, from microwave satellites

Passive Microwave Hail Climatology Data Products V1
atmosphere NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 4 netCDF-3
In plain English

What it measures. Map estimates of how often severe hailstorms occur each year around the world.

How it's made. Derived from satellite microwave imagery aboard the GPM and TRMM missions, combined into gridded maps covering 1998 to 2025.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for storm and climate research and for risk and emergency management, such as understanding where damaging hail is most likely.

What's measured

Atmosphere › Precipitation › Solid Precipitation › Hail

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1998-01-01 → 2025-03-31
  • Measured byGPM (GMI) · TRMM (TMI)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-179, -89, 179, 89
  • FormatsnetCDF-3
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The Passive Microwave Hail Climatology Data Products are gridded estimates of the annual frequency of severe hailstorm occurrence, as retrieved from satellite-borne passive microwave imagery. These data products can be useful for weather and climatological research related to storms, as well as applications involving risk management and emergency management. The dataset files are available in netCDF-3 format, as well as hail climatology maps in PNG format, from January 1, 1998, through March 31, 2025. NOTE: The TRMM_HailClimatology file only goes through September 30, 2014 due to the end of the TRMM mission.

Get the data

pmhailclim_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="pmhailclim",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.