Upcoming IMERG changes for consideration

Email today denotes On 4 March 2026, at approximately 05:00 UTC (00:00 EST) , the GPM NRT system will be taken down and reconfigured to use the newly approved algorithms for the radar and the radiometers (GMI, AMSR2, ATMS, MHS, SSMIS). All products will have a data product version of V08A. ALL V08 DATA PRODUCTS WILL BE IN netCDF4 FORMAT RATHER THAN THE CURRENT HDF5. The suffix will change to RT-NC. IMERG NRT both early and late will remain at V07. It will continue to use V07 algorithms until summer 2026. It will, however, use the V08 L2 GPROF precipitation retrieval products as its inputs. To document this change, the IMERG data product version will be changed to V07C (from the current V07B). It will CONTINUE in HDF5 until its V08 algorithm is delivered in summer 2026. The current installation plan is as follows: 1. at 04:45 UTC 4 March 2026 (11:45 EST 3 March) the NRT software will be taken down 2. at 05:00 UTC 4 March 2026 (00:00 EST 4 March) JAXA MOS will start sending Ku L1 and Ka L1 radar product in V08 netCDF 3. starting at 05:00 UTC 4 March 2026 (00:00 EST 4 March) until about 07:00 UTC 4 March 2026 (02:00 EST PPS will reconfigure the algorithms and software configuration to V08 versions. Again about 2 hours is expected all things proceeding nominally. 4. As IMERG runs 4 hours (early) and 14 hours (late) behind realtime, it will be run manually using the existing V07 HDF GPROF products produced until it comes to the point that the first GPROF V08 products are active. At 17:00EST (22:00 UTC) 17 Feb 2026 the V08 file specifications will be available on https://pps.gsfc.nasa.gov/ website At 17:00 EST (22:00 UTC) 20 Feb 2026 sample radar L2 and radiometer L1C and GPROF L2 will be available online. We will send the URI to use to retrieve them. Please understand these samples are for format purposes and are not considered science ready. PLEASE REMEMBER: IMERG does not change at this time and during this V08 installation. As a result no sample files are needed. Note: These version changes are complicated and have many "working parts". Sometimes unexpected or untested events occur that might impact the schedule unfavorably. Erich For questions: [erich.stocker@mail.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov](mailto:erich.stocker@mail.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov)