Unique spaceborne measurements of the three‐dimensional structure of convective clouds producing terrestrial gamma ray flashes (TGFs) were performed using both active and passive microwave sensors on board the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM)‐Core Observatory satellite, finding coherent features for nine TGF‐producing storms. The delineation of cloud structure using the radar reflectivity factor shows convective cells with significant vertical development and thick layers with high ice content. Compared to other cumulonimbus clouds in the tropics, the TGFs counterparts have higher reflectivity values above 3 and 8 km altitude showing in all cases a cumulonimbus tower and the TGFs locations are very close, or coincident, to these high Z columns, where reflectivity exceeds 50 dBz. Using the GPM Microwave Imager radiometer, most thunderstorms show a very strong depression of polarization corrected temperature (PCT) at channel 89 GHz, indicating a strong scattering signal by ice in the upper cloud layers. At channel 166 GHZ, the difference between vertical and horizontal brightness temperature signal always returns positive values, from 0.2 up to 13.7 K indicating a complex structure with randomly/vertically oriented ice particles. The PCT was used to characterize the analyzed storms in terms of hydrometeor types, confirming in 7/9 cases a high likelihood of hail/graupel presence. To perform analysis on the TGFs parent flashes, radio atmospherics data from the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network lightning network were used. Waveform data indicate that all cases are intra‐cloud events and TGFs typically take place during the peak of flash rate production. Finally, the analysis of the most intense event is shown.

The Ka-Ku Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) and the Microwave Imager on board the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission core satellite have been collecting data for more than 3 years, providing precipitation products over the globe, including oceans and remote areas where ground-based precipitation measurements are not available. The main objective of this work is to validate the GPM-DPR products over a key climatic region with complex orography such as the Italian territory. The performances of the DPR precipitation rate products are evaluated over an 18-month period (July 2015-December 2016) using both radar and rain gauge data. The ground reference network is composed of 22 weather radars and more than 3000 rain gauges. DPR dual-frequency products generally show better performance with respect to the single-frequency (i.e., Ka- or Ku-band only) products, especially when ground radar data are taken as reference. A sensitivity analysis with respect to season and rainfall intensity is also carried out. It was found that the normal scan (NS) product outperforms the high-sensitivity scan (HS) and matched scan (MS) during the summer season. A deeper analysis is carried out to investigate the larger discrepancies between the DPR-NS product and ground reference data. The most relevant improvement of the DPR products' performance was found by limiting the comparison to the upscaled radar data with a higher quality index. The resulting scores in comparison with ground radars are mean error (ME) = -0.44 mm h(-1), RMSE = 3.57 mm h(-1), and fractional standard error (FSE) = 142%, with the POD = 65% and FAR = 1% for rainfall above 0.5 mm h(-1).