This study evaluates the precipitation product of the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) over the Mexican region during the period between April 2014 and October 2015 using three different time scales for cumulative precipitation (hourly, daily and seasonal). Also, the IMERG data have been analyzed as a function of elevation given the rain gauges from the automatic meteorological stations network, located within the area of study, which are used as a reference. In the present study, continuous and categorical statistics are used to evaluate IMERG. It was found that IMERG showed better performance at the daily and seasonal time scale resolutions. While hourly precipitation estimates reached a mean correlation coefficient of 0.35, the daily and seasonal precipitation estimates achieved correlations over 0.51. In addition, the IMERG precipitation product was able to reproduce the diurnal and daily cycles of the average precipitation with a trend towards overestimating rain gauges. However, extreme precipitation events were highly underestimated, as shown by relative biases of −61% and −46% for the hourly and daily precipitation analysis, respectively. It was also found that IMERG tends to improve precipitation detection and to decrease magnitude errors over the higher terrain elevations of Mexico.

Daily, monthly and annual mean air temperatures in Guadalajara, Mexico, were gathered from the time periods: 1926–1994, 1957–1994, 1978–1994. The heat island effect was detected in a trend analysis of the series of minimum temperatures over the period 1926–1994. Also, it was found that the annual mean temperature increased 0.05°C per year. A sharp increase has occurred over the last 20 years because of the abrupt expansion and industrialization of the city of Guadalajara. This study revealed the presence of a cool island in the centre of the metropolitan zone of Guadalajara (MZG) during the wet season. A cross-spectral analysis was used to study the thermal variations with different frequencies. Temperature oscillations in the MZG occurred in time intervals ranging from 3–5 days up to 22 years. The study suggests a relationship between urban growth and temperature variations. The temperature rise relates to urban growth with a correlation co-efficient equal to 0.857. Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society