Presented are quantitative estimates of specific attenuation and specific differential attenuation of 5-cmwavelength radiation (C band) obtained by comparison with measurements at 10-cm wavelength (S band), which are much less affected by attenuation. The data originated from two almost-collocated radars in central Oklahoma. To avoid biases in estimates, the slopes with respect to range of differences in reflectivities and differential reflectivities are assumed to represent the specific attenuations. Observations on a day with no reports of hail on the ground and on a day with large hail are contrasted. A simple one-dimensional model of melting hail is used to qualify these observations. Examples of volumetric fields of the polarimetric variables obtained at the two wavelengths are presented to illustrate that much can be learned about size, orientation, and phase of hydrometeors over volumes that play a role in precipitation formation.
The authors evaluate rainfall estimates from the new polarimetric X-band radar at Bonn, Germany, for a period between mid-November and the end of December 2009 by comparison with rain gauges. The emphasis is on slightly more than 1-month accumulations over areas minimally affected by beam blockage. The rain regime was characterized by reflectivities mainly below 45 dBZ, maximum observed rain rates of 47 mm h 21 , a mean rain rate of 0.1 mm h 21 , and brightband altitudes between 0.6 and 2.4 km above the ground. Both the reflectivity factor and the specific differential phase are used to obtain the rain rates. The accuracy of rain total estimates is evaluated from the statistics of the differences between radar and rain gauge measurements. Polarimetry provides improvement in the statistics of reflectivity-based measurements by reducing the bias and RMS errors from 225% to 7% and from 33% to 17%, respectively. Essential to this improvement is separation of the data into those attributed to pure rain, those from the bright band, and those due to nonmeteorological scatterers. A type-specific (rain or wet snow) relation is applied to obtain the rain rate by matching on the average the contribution by wet snow to the radar-measured rainfall below the bright band. The measurement of rain using specific differential phase is the most robust and can be applied to the very low rain rates and still produce credible accumulation estimates characterized with a standard deviation of 11% but a bias of 225%. A composite estimator is also tested and discussed.
When spectral moments in the azimuth are spaced by less than a beamwidth, it is called oversampling. Superresolution is a type of oversampling that refers to sampling at half a beamwidth on the national network of Doppler weather radars [Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D)]. Such close spacing is desirable because it extends the range at which small severe weather features, such as tornadoes or microbursts, can be resolved. This study examines oversampling for phased array radars. The goal of the study is to preserve the same effective beamwidth as on the WSR-88D while obtaining smaller spectral moment estimate errors at the same or faster volume update times. To that effect, a weighted average of autocorrelations of radar signals from three consecutive radials is proposed. Errors in three spectral moments obtained from these autocorrelations are evaluated theoretically. Methodologies on how to choose weights that preserve the desirable effective beamwidth are presented. The results are demonstrated on the fields of spectral moments obtained with the National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT), a phased array weather radar at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL).
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