The Potential of Opportunistic Rainfall Sensing to Complement Conventional Sensors: The 2017 Flash Flood in Leghorn (Italy) as a Case Study

Accurate weather forecasting, particularly in the field of nowcasting, plays a crucial role in a wide range of applications, including public safety, business services, and personal applications.The ability to provide realtime, reliable forecasts of hazardous weather conditions, such as intense rain and thunderstorms, is essential for mitigating risks to life and property through prompt emergency interventions.Quantitative precipitation estimation can be obtained by several observing systems, each utilizing different measurement principles, offering varying time and spatial resolutions and accuracies.To be effective, estimation of precipitation on the ground should be provided through precipitation maps that must be characterized by accuracy in measuring precipitation rate, as well as completeness, continuity and high spatial-temporal resolution.In the last few decades, microwave (W) links have been investigated to opportunistically retrieve precipitation estimates, by correlating radio-frequency attenuation and precipitation along the propagation path.This includes satellite-based rain sensing devices, which typically exploit geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satellites for TV broadcasting at Ku-band (1013GHz).