Data dissemination is an important component in the overall delivery of the satellite service. The user community of Nowcasting and Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) applications have strict timeliness requirements for data reception. To this end, EUMETSAT ensures the delivery of High Rate SEVIRI image data from the MSG satellites within five minutes of processing. To meet such requirements, reliable dissemination mechanisms are required.

For high-timeliness missions like  Meteosat Second Generation, the image processing and dissemination are started within one minute of the image acquisition. The  High Rate SEVIRI 15-minute image repeat cycles are divided into segments (24 segments for the HRV channel and eight segments for other channels). When one segment is complete, dissemination begins. Nominally, the full repeat cycle is available on the users' reception systems within a maximum of five minutes from the completion image acquisition by the satellite sensors.

The following data dissemination mechanisms are currently available for the delivery of satellite data and products in near real-time:

Metop Direct Readout — Advanced High Rate Picture Transmission (AHRPT).

Meteosat Direct Dissemination — Low Rate Information Transmission (LRIT) Direct Dissemination.

EUMETCast — multi-mission broadcast system for processed level 1 and level 2 products from the Meteosat, Metop, Jason-2 satellites and several third-party datasets.  EUMETCast is based upon Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) satellite broadcast technology.

Internet — the EUMETSAT website provides a sample of animated image data and visualised products, see the Image Gallery for further information.

Offline data — those data older than 24-hours and sets of long time series data can be ordered on demand from the EUMETCAST Data Centre. These data and products are available via FTP or on offline media, e.g. DVD or DLT