The operational Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MiRS) aims to upgrade the NESDIS Microwave Surface and Precipitation Products System (MSPPS) and build a one-stop shop for microwave products from various satellites with different instrumental configurations. With the capability of providing optimal and physically-based retrievals of atmospheric and surface state parameters, the operational MiRS will produce advanced near-real-time surface and precipitation products in all-weather and over all-surface conditions using brightness temperatures from the microwave instruments, which include AMSU-A and MHS instruments on board of NOAA and EUMETSAT polar orbiting satellites, SSMIS on DMSP polar satellites, Saphir on the Megha-Tropiques satellite, GMI on the GPM satellite, and ATMS on S-NPP and NOAA-20. The operational products include: vertical profiles of temperature and moisture, rainfall rate, total precipitable water, cloud liquid water, snow cover, snow water equivalent, snowfall rate, sea ice concentration, ice water path, surface emissivity spectra, and land surface temperature. These products have been made operationally available to users with different types (orbital, granule/Area of Interests, daily) and formats (HDF-EOS/HDF, netCDF, McIDAS and AWIPS) through a multi-year stratified phase approach.

The operational products from NOAA-18, NOAA-19, MetOp-B, S-NPP, and NOAA-20 include: temperature profile over ocean, moisture profiles over ocean and non-coastal land, total precipitable water over ocean and non-costal land, cloud liquid water over ocean, rain water path, ice water path, rainfall rate, snow cover, sea ice concentration, snow water equivalent, snowfall rate, land surface temperature, and surface emissivity over land and snow for all AMSU-A and MHS channels. The operational products from F18 and F17 include: total precipitable water over ocean, cloud liquid water over ocean, rain water path, ice water path, rainfall rate, snow cover, sea ice concentration, snow water equivalent, land surface temperature, and surface emissivity over land and snow for all SSMIS channels. Other satellites including GPM and Megha-Tropiques also provide similar operational products as above. All of the satellites mentioned above have been converted into our high resolution products (version 11.1 and above) and made available in netCDF4 format only (No HDF-EOS format is available).

The MIRS retrospective data have being archived since August 30, 2007 starting from version 1.0, and can be acquired from the National Climatic Data Center and the Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System.