scholarly journals Effects of Using High-Density Rain Gauge Networks and Weather Radar Data on Urban Hydrological Analyses

Water ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 931 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
High Density

scholarly journals Tropical Andes Radar Precipitation Estimates Need High Temporal and Moderate Spatial Resolution

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Guallpa ◽  
Johanna Orellana-Alvear ◽  
Jörg Bendix
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
Time Resolution ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Tropical Andes ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Impact

Weather radar networks are an excellent tool for quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE), due to their high resolution in space and time, particularly in remote mountain areas such as the Tropical Andes. Nevertheless, reduction of the temporal and spatial resolution might severely reduce the quality of QPE. Thus, the main objective of this study was to analyze the impact of spatial and temporal resolutions of radar data on the cumulative QPE. For this, data from the world’s highest X-band weather radar (4450 m a.s.l.), located in the Andes of Ecuador (Paute River basin), and from a rain gauge network were used. Different time resolutions (1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 60 min) and spatial resolutions (0.5, 0.25, and 0.1 km) were evaluated. An optical flow method was validated for 11 rainfall events (with different features) and applied to enhance the temporal resolution of radar data to 1-min intervals. The results show that 1-min temporal resolution images are able to capture rain event features in detail. The radar–rain gauge correlation decreases considerably when the time resolution increases (r from 0.69 to 0.31, time resolution from 1 to 60 min). No significant difference was found in the rain total volume (3%) calculated with the three spatial resolution data. A spatial resolution of 0.5 km on radar imagery is suitable to quantify rainfall in the Andes Mountains. This study improves knowledge on rainfall spatial distribution in the Ecuadorian Andes, and it will be the basis for future hydrometeorological studies.

scholarly journals A study on WRF radar data assimilation for hydrological rainfall prediction

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 3095-3110 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Liu ◽  
M. Bray ◽  
D. Han
Keyword(s):  
Data Assimilation ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Radar Reflectivity ◽  
Storm Event ◽  
Hydrological Applications ◽  
Radar Data Assimilation

Abstract. Mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are gaining more attention in providing high-resolution rainfall forecasts at the catchment scale for real-time flood forecasting. The model accuracy is however negatively affected by the "spin-up" effect and errors in the initial and lateral boundary conditions. Synoptic studies in the meteorological area have shown that the assimilation of operational observations, especially the weather radar data, can improve the reliability of the rainfall forecasts from the NWP models. This study aims at investigating the potential of radar data assimilation in improving the NWP rainfall forecasts that have direct benefits for hydrological applications. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is adopted to generate 10 km rainfall forecasts for a 24 h storm event in the Brue catchment (135.2 km2) located in southwest England. Radar reflectivity from the lowest scan elevation of a C-band weather radar is assimilated by using the three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) data-assimilation technique. Considering the unsatisfactory quality of radar data compared to the rain gauge observations, the radar data are assimilated in both the original form and an improved form based on a real-time correction ratio developed according to the rain gauge observations. Traditional meteorological observations including the surface and upper-air measurements of pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed are also assimilated as a bench mark to better evaluate and test the potential of radar data assimilation. Four modes of data assimilation are thus carried out on different types/combinations of observations: (1) traditional meteorological data; (2) radar reflectivity; (3) corrected radar reflectivity; (4) a combination of the original reflectivity and meteorological data; and (5) a combination of the corrected reflectivity and meteorological data. The WRF rainfall forecasts before and after different modes of data assimilation are evaluated by examining the rainfall temporal variations and total amounts which have direct impacts on rainfall–runoff transformation in hydrological applications. It is found that by solely assimilating radar data, the improvement of rainfall forecasts are not as obvious as assimilating meteorological data; whereas the positive effect of radar data can be seen when combined with the traditional meteorological data, which leads to the best rainfall forecasts among the five modes. To further improve the effect of radar data assimilation, limitations of the radar correction ratio developed in this study are discussed and suggestions are made on more efficient utilisation of radar data in NWP data assimilation.

scholarly journals Statistical and neural classifiers in estimating rain rate from weather radar measurements

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 111-115
Author(s):  
C. I. Christodoulou ◽  
S. C. Michaelides
Keyword(s):  
Electromagnetic Radiation ◽  
Rain Rate ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Meteorological Conditions ◽  
Swiss Alps ◽  
Rain Gauges ◽  
Weather Radars ◽  
Radar Measurements

Abstract. Weather radars are used to measure the electromagnetic radiation backscattered by cloud raindrops. Clouds that backscatter more electromagnetic radiation consist of larger droplets of rain and therefore they produce more rain. The idea is to estimate rain rate by using weather radar as an alternative to rain-gauges measuring rainfall on the ground. In an experiment during two days in June and August 1997 over the Italian-Swiss Alps, data from weather radar and surrounding rain-gauges were collected at the same time. The statistical KNN and the neural SOM classifiers were implemented for the classification task using the radar data as input and the rain-gauge measurements as output. The proposed system managed to identify matching pattern waveforms and the rainfall rate on the ground was estimated based on the radar reflectivities with a satisfactory error rate, outperforming the traditional Z/R relationship. It is anticipated that more data, representing a variety of possible meteorological conditions, will lead to improved results. The results in this work show that an estimation of rain rate based on weather radar measurements treated with statistical and neural classifiers is possible.

scholarly journals Rainfall-runoff modeling using Doppler weather radar data for Adyar watershed, India

MAUSAM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
S.JOSEPHINE VANAJA ◽  
B.V. MUDGAL ◽  
S.B. THAMPI
Keyword(s):  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Rainfall Data ◽  
Doppler Weather Radar ◽  
Rainfall Runoff ◽  
Cyclonic Storm ◽  
Rain Gauges ◽  
Runoff Modeling

Precipitation is a significant input for hydrologic models; so, it needs to be quantified precisely. The measurement with rain gauges gives the rainfall at a particular location, whereas the radar obtains instantaneous snapshots of electromagnetic backscatter from rain volumes that are then converted into rainfall via algorithms. It has been proved that the radar measurement of areal rainfall can outperform rain gauge network measurements, especially in remote areas where rain gauges are sparse, and remotely sensed satellite rainfall data are too inaccurate. The research focuses on a technique to improve rainfall-runoff modeling based on radar derived rainfall data for Adyar watershed, Chennai, India. A hydrologic model called ‘Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS)’ is used for simulating rainfall-runoff processes. CARTOSAT 30 m DEM is used for watershed delineation using HEC-GeoHMS. The Adyar watershed is within 100 km radius circle from the Doppler Weather Radar station, hence it has been chosen as the study area. The cyclonic storm Jal event from 4-8 November, 2010 period is selected for the study. The data for this period are collected from the Statistical Department, and the Cyclone Detection Radar Centre, Chennai, India. The results show that the runoff is over predicted using calibrated Doppler radar data in comparison with the point rainfall from rain gauge stations.

scholarly journals Facilitating radar precipitation data processing, assessment and analysis: a GIS-compatible python approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 652-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Kreklow
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
Data Exchange ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Precipitation Data ◽  
Raw Data ◽  
Automated Processing ◽  
Point Data ◽  
Radar Data Processing

Abstract A review of existing tools for radar data processing revealed a lack of open source software for automated processing, assessment and analysis of weather radar composites. The ArcGIS-compatible Python package radproc attempts to reduce this gap. Radproc provides an automated raw data processing workflow for nationwide, freely available German weather radar climatology (RADKLIM) and operational (RADOLAN) composite products. Raw data are converted into a uniform HDF5 file structure used by radproc's analysis and data quality assessment functions. This enables transferability of the developed analysis and export functionality to other gridded or point-scale precipitation data. Thus, radproc can be extended by additional import routines to support any other German or non-German precipitation dataset. Analysis methods include temporal aggregations, detection of heavy rainfall and an automated processing of rain gauge point data into the same HDF5 format for comparison to gridded radar data. A set of functions for data exchange with ArcGIS allows for visualisation and further geospatial analysis. The application on a 17-year time series of hourly RADKLIM data showed that radproc greatly facilitates radar data processing and analysis by avoiding manual programming work and helps to lower the barrier for non-specialists to work with these novel radar climatology datasets.

scholarly journals A GIS methodology for the analysis of weather radar precipitation data

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Gad ◽  
I. K. Tsanis
Keyword(s):  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Precipitation Data ◽  
Rain Gauge Data ◽  
Gis Environment ◽  
Arcview Gis ◽  
The City ◽  
Rain Gauge Network

A GIS multi-component module was developed within the ArcView GIS environment for processing and analysing weather radar precipitation data. The module is capable of: (a) reading geo-reference radar data and comparing it with rain-gauge network data, (b) estimating the kinematics of rainfall patterns, such as the storm speed and direction, and (c) accumulating radar-derived rainfall depths. By bringing the spatial capabilities of GIS to bear this module can accurately locate rainfall on the ground and can overlay the animated storm on different geographical features of the study area, making the exploration of the storm's kinematic characteristics obtained from radar data relatively simple. A case study in the City of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada is used to demonstrate the functionality of the module. Radar comparison with rain gauge data revealed an underestimation of the classical Marshal & Palmer Z–R relation to rainfall rate.

Spatial interpolation of precipitation from multiple rain gauge networks and weather radar data for operational applications in Alpine catchments

2018 ◽  
Vol 563 ◽  
pp. 1092-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Foehn ◽  
Javier García Hernández ◽  
Bettina Schaefli ◽  
Giovanni De Cesare
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Interpolation ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Alpine Catchments

scholarly journals Utilization of Weather Radar Data for the Flash Flood Indicator Application in the Czech Republic

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 3184
Author(s):  
Petr Novák ◽  
Hana Kyznarová ◽  
Martin Pecha ◽  
Petr Šercl ◽  
Vojtěch Svoboda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Flash Flood ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Adjustment Coefficient ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Radar Network ◽  
Precipitation Estimates ◽  
Quantitative Precipitation Estimates

In the past few years, demands on flash flood forecasting have grown. The Flash Flood Indicator (FFI) is a system used at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute for the evaluation of the risk of possible occurrence of flash floods over the whole Czech Republic. The FFI calculation is based on the current soil saturation, the physical-geographical characteristics of every considered area, and radar-based quantitative precipitation estimates (QPEs) and forecasts (QPFs). For higher reliability of the flash flood risk assessment, calculations of QPEs and QPFs are crucial, particularly when very high intensities of rainfall are reached or expected. QPEs and QPFs entering the FFI computations are the products of the Czech Weather Radar Network. The QPF is based on the COTREC extrapolation method. The radar-rain gauge-combining method MERGE2 is used to improve radar-only QPEs and QPFs. It generates a combined radar-rain gauge QPE based on the kriging with an external drift algorithm, and, also, an adjustment coefficient applicable to radar-only QPEs and QPFs. The adjustment coefficient is applied in situations when corresponding rain gauge measurements are not yet available. A new adjustment coefficient scheme was developed and tested to improve the performance of adjusted radar QPEs and QPFs in the FFI.

scholarly journals Coastal and orographic effects on extreme precipitation revealed by weather radar observations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Marra ◽  
Moshe Armon ◽  
Efrat Morin
Keyword(s):  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Radar Data ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Exceedance Probability ◽  
Precipitation Frequency ◽  
Rain Gauge Data ◽  
Orographic Effects ◽  
Gauge Data ◽  
Convective Cells

Abstract. The yearly exceedance probability of extreme precipitation of multiple durations is crucial for infrastructure design, risk management and policymaking. Local extremes emerge from the interaction of weather systems with local terrain features such as coastlines and orography, however multi-duration extremes do not follow exactly the patterns of cumulative precipitation and are still not well understood. High-resolution information from weather radars could help us better quantifying their patterns, but traditional extreme-value analyses based on radar records were found too inaccurate for quantifying the extreme intensities for impact studies. Here, we propose a novel methodology for extreme precipitation frequency analysis based on relatively short weather radar records, and we use it to investigate coastal and orographic effects on extreme precipitation of durations between 10 minutes and 24 hours. Combining 11 years of radar data with 10-minute rain gauge data in the southeastern Mediterranean, we obtain estimates of the 1 in 100 years intensities with ~22 % standard error, which is lower than those obtained using traditional approaches on rain gauge data. We identify three distinct regimes, which respond differently to coastal and orographic forcing: short durations (~10 minutes), related to peak convective rain rates; hourly durations (~1 hours), related to the yield of individual convective cells; and long durations (~6–24 hours), related to the accumulation of multiple convective cells and to stratiform processes. At short and hourly durations, extreme return levels peak at the coastline, while at longer durations they peak corresponding to the orographic barriers. The distributions tail heaviness is rather uniform above the sea and rapidly changes in presence of orography, with opposing directions at short (decreasing tail heaviness, with a peak at hourly durations) and long (increasing) durations. These distinct effects suggest that short-scale hazards such as urban pluvial floods could be more of concern for the coastal regions, while longer-scale hazards such as flash floods could be more relevant in mountainous areas.

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