Abstract

Accurate precipitation monitoring is crucial for understanding climate change and rainfall-driven hazards at a local scale. However, the current suite of monitoring approaches have different insufficiencies, including low spatial and temporal resolutions, and the inability to monitor potentially destructive precipitation events such as hailstorms. In this study, we develop an array-based solution to monitor rainfall with seismic nodal stations, offering both high spatial and high temporal resolutions. We analyze seismic records from densely spaced, high-frequency seismometers in Oklahoma, and identify signals from all 9 precipitation events that occurred during the one-month station deployment in 2016. After removing anthropogenic noise and Earth structure response, the obtained precipitation spatial pattern mimics the one from an operational weather radar, while offering higher spatial and temporal resolutions. We further show the potential of this approach to monitor hail with joint analysis of seismic intensity and independent precipitation rate measurements, and advocate for coordinated seismological-meteorological field campaign design.