The Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) produces a gridded product by assimilating data from stations and the Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model. This project assesses the performance of the satellite based rainfall estimates for Canada, and the results of their assimilation with CaPA. The satellite based estimates considered are those from the Climate Prediction Center Morphing method (CMORPH) and Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN).

Relative to the Second Generation of Daily Adjusted Precipitation for Canada (APC2), all satellite products are shown to generally underestimate rainfall, however convective events result in an overestimation. Skill scores show that the satellite products possess the most skill for eastern Canada and decreasingly so westward. When assimilated with CaPA, the satellite products express decreased skill for light rainfall and potential improvements for larger events. While central Canada experiences the greatest improvements, all regions benefit the most from June through August.