Evaluation of a new X-band weather radar for operational use in south Sweden

Evaluation of a new X-band weather radar for operational use in south Sweden

The performance of a new type of X-band weather radar (WR) for Sweden during a pilot run is studied. Compared to the conventional C-band WRs, the X-band WR covers a smaller area but with a higher spatiotemporal resolution, making it suitable for urban hydrological applications. Rainfall estimations...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water science and technology Vol. 81; no. 8; pp. 1623 - 1635
Main Authors: Hosseini, Seyyed Hasan, Hashemi, Hossein, Berndtsson, Ronny, South, Nicholas, Aspegren, Henrik, Larsson, Rolf, Olsson, Jonas, Persson, Andreas, Olsson, Lisa
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England IWA Publishing 15-04-2020
Subjects:
C band
Contamination
Engineering and Technology
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Monitoring
Fjärranalysteknik
Gauges
Hydrology
Hyetographs
Meteorological radar
Naturresursteknik
Precipitation
Radar
Rain
Rain gauges
Rainfall
Reflectance
Remote Sensing
Runoff
Superhigh frequencies
Sweden
Teknik
Weather
Sweden
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Summary:The performance of a new type of X-band weather radar (WR) for Sweden during a pilot run is studied. Compared to the conventional C-band WRs, the X-band WR covers a smaller area but with a higher spatiotemporal resolution, making it suitable for urban hydrological applications. Rainfall estimations from different elevation angles of the radar (levels) are compared at one-minute and single-event timescales with the observations of several rain gauges at different ranges using hyetographs. In general, the estimations aligned well with observations and the best match appeared for ranges as long as 5-10 km. Seemingly, radar estimations suffered from overshooting of lower lying showers by higher level scans in longer ranges (19-30 km) and from the reflectivity contamination due to moving objects in short ranges (<1 km). Also, the effective range of the radar dropped sharply for the moments when a cloudburst was located over the radar. Although various sources of error could affect the X-band WR rainfall estimates, higher resolution spatiotemporal rainfall monitoring for wider areas will benefit from an integration of data from a network of X-band WRs.
ISSN:0273-1223
1996-9732
DOI:10.2166/wst.2020.066