It also refers to the degradation of a signal caused by the electromagnetic interference of the leading edge of a storm front.
Rain fade is not limited to satellite uplinks or downlinks, as it can also affect terrestrial point-to-point microwave links (those on the Earth's surface).
Melting layer height is also used as the limits of rain region and can be estimated from the bright band signature of radar reflectivity.
Substantially, the earth altitude above the sea level is an essential factor affecting the rain attenuation performance.
Possible ways to overcome the effects of rain fade are site diversity, uplink power control, variable rate encoding, and receiving antennas larger than the requested size for normal weather conditions.
[9] In this arrangement, a primary link such as an 80 GHz 1 Gbit/s full duplex microwave bridge may be calculated to have a 99.9% availability rate over the period of one year.
[10] The calculated 99.9% availability rate means that the link may be down for a cumulative total of ten or more hours per year as the peaks of rain storms pass over the area.