Accurate precipitation monitoring is crucial for understanding climate change and rainfall-driven hazards at a local scale. However, the current suite of monitoring approaches have different insufficiencies, including low spatial and temporal resolutions, and the inability to monitor potentially destructive precipitation events such as hailstorms. In this study, we develop an array-based solution to monitor rainfall with seismic nodal stations, offering both high spatial and high temporal resolutions. We analyze seismic records from densely spaced, high-frequency seismometers in Oklahoma, and identify signals from all 9 precipitation events that occurred during the one-month station deployment in 2016. After removing anthropogenic noise and Earth structure response, the obtained precipitation spatial pattern mimics the one from an operational weather radar, while offering higher spatial and temporal resolutions. We further show the potential of this approach to monitor hail with joint analysis of seismic intensity and independent precipitation rate measurements, and advocate for coordinated seismological-meteorological field campaign design.

The origin of widespread volcanism far from plate boundaries and mantle plumes remains a fundamental unsolved question. An example of this puzzle is the Anatolian region, where abundant intraplate volcanism has occurred since 10 Ma, but a nearby underlying plume structure in the deep mantle is lacking. We employed a combination of seismic and geochemical data to link intraplate volcanism in Anatolia to a trail of magmatic centers leading back to East Africa and its mantle plume, consistent with northward asthenospheric transport of over ~2500 km distance. Joint modeling of seismic imaging and petrological data indicates that the east Anatolian mantle potential temperature is higher than the ambient mantle (~1420C). Based on multiple seismic tomography models, the Anatolian upper mantle is likely connected to East Africa by an asthenospheric channel with low seismic velocities. Along the channel, isotopic signatures among volcanoes are consistent with a common mantle source, and petrological data demonstrate similar elevated mantle temperatures, consistent with little cooling in the channel during the long-distance transport. Horizontal asthenospheric pressure gradients originating from mantle plume upwelling beneath East Africa provide a mechanism for high lateral transport rates that match the relatively constant mantle potential temperatures along the channel. Rapid long-distance asthenospheric flow helps explain the widespread occurrence of global intraplate magmatism in regions far from deeply-rooted mantle plumes throughout Earth history.