The paper addresses some concepts and issues relevant to the use of satellite imagery, as provided by the infrared radiometers flying on board geostationary orbiting platforms, in the tracking and prediction of typical mid‐latitude Mesoscale Convective Complexes (MCCs) associated with high intensity rainstorms over the Mediterranean area. The predictive content of sequences of Meteosat half‐hourly images is exploited in this work, aiming at the development of storm identification and cloud tracking procedures suitable for operational use in flash flood forecasting applications. Though relying essentially on image processing techniques, the cloud tracking approach seems quite useful in the short term prediction of the dynamics of MCCs as the resolution scale of the temporal sampling provided by the satellite sensor is short enough to ensure that abrupt changes in the cloud characteristics are not likely to occur between two subsequent images. Some studies are presented to show the potential of the procedur...