The ITHACA Extreme Rainfall Detection System provides near real time alerts related to potential exceptional rainfalls at river basin scale. River basin polygons are shown in different colors indicating the alert criticality level, according to the rainfall severity.

The system is based on a precipitation analysis carried out by means of global rainfall satellite data processing. Specifically, current rainfall condition are monitored exploiting near real time Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) data and compared to the outputs of a historical analysis.

Several areas of the world are currently not monitored by the ITHACA ERDS service, for the following reasons:
- not covered by the TRMM mission (beyond 50° of latitude, both North and South) or lacking a detailed subdivision in basins;
- not monitored in actual version. Already planned activities include an increase of the covered areas.

This service is provided as beta version; validation from users in the field will help in improving overall service reliability. Information on the location of floods not detected by the system, together with feedbacks on provided alerts, will be used to calibrate the model.

In order to confirm provided alerts or to report flood events, please access to the ITHACA ERDS application and use the Give Feedback tool.