Satellite Meteorology is the youngest and fastest growing branch of the science of meteorology and the present book traces its fascinating history, describes the current state of art, and envisions its potential and possibilities. The last decade has witnessed a significant improvement in the accuracy of short and medium range weather forecasting the world over, particularly in the tropics. Numerical weather prediction models seem to be taking over from synoptic meteorologists and may even be doing better. With the support of high power computers, numerical models have indeed become sophisticated and highly capable. However, it is undeniable that their recent success has been largely due to the real time assimilation of satellite data and products. Against the backdrop of these developments, revision of Satellite Meteorology had become overdue. The second edition retains the basic structure and style of previous edition but the updated content reflects more realistically the state of art in this ever-evolving field of science and technology. It incorporates the most recent factual and technical information, research results and references to the latest publications.