Abstract Two methods of deriving probability of precipitation fields (PP) over oceanic areas are presented and compared. The cloud fields are analyzed at the scale of ∼130–150 km from satellite visible and infrared imagery and collocated with ship observations of present weather. Method 1 is based on a detailed cloud classification scheme in 20 classes: a mean PP is determined for each cloud class. Method 2 assigns a PP based on cloud top temperature and mean cloud albedo only. For both methods, a normalization with respect to cloud fraction is applied. Method 1 involves more cloud field descriptors than Method 2, but the latter is simpler to implement and much faster. The PPs assigned to individual cloud fields vary between 0% and 65%. The importance of the visible sensor is clearly demonstrated, i.e., infrared-only techniques will be much less accurate. For real-time applications, the two methods provide similar results except for some specific cloud classes where maximum differences reach 13%, due to t...