A Real-Time Evaporation Correction Scheme for Radar-Derived Mosaicked Precipitation Estimations

Martinaitis, Steven M.; Grams, Heather M.; Langston, Carrie; Zhang, Jian; Howard, Kenneth

doi:10.1175/JHM-D-17-0093.1

i

A Real-Time Evaporation Correction Scheme for Radar-Derived Mosaicked Precipitation Estimations

2018
By Martinaitis, Steven M. ; Grams, Heather M. ; Langston, Carrie
Source Journal of Hydrometeorology, 19(1), 87-111

Details

Journal Title:

Journal of Hydrometeorology
Personal Author:

Martinaitis, Steven M. ; Grams, Heather M. ; Langston, Carrie ; Zhang, Jian ; Howard, Kenneth
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; NSSL (National Severe Storms Laboratory) ; CIMSS (Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies) ; NWS (National Weather Service)
Description:

Precipitation values estimated by radar are assumed to be the amount of precipitation that occurred at the surface, yet this notion is inaccurate. Numerous atmospheric and microphysical processes can alter the precipitation rate between the radar beam elevation and the surface. One such process is evaporation. This study determines the applicability of integrating an evaporation correction scheme for real-time radar-derived mosaicked precipitation rates to reduce quantitative precipitation estimate (QPE) overestimation and to reduce the coverage of false surface precipitation. An evaporation technique previously developed for large-scale numerical modeling is applied to Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) precipitation rates through the use of 2D and 3D numerical weather prediction (NWP) atmospheric parameters as well as basic radar properties. Hourly accumulated QPE with evaporation adjustment compared against gauge observations saw an average reduction of the overestimation bias by 57%–76% for rain events and 42%–49% for primarily snow events. The removal of false surface precipitation also reduced the number of hourly gauge observations that were considered as “false zero” observations by 52.1% for rain and 38.2% for snow. Optimum computational efficiency was achieved through the use of simplified equations and hourly 10-km horizontal resolution NWP data. The run time for the evaporation correction algorithm is 6–7 s.
Source:

Journal of Hydrometeorology, 19(1), 87-111
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-17-0093.1
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA11OAR4320072
Rights Information:

Other
Compliance:

Submitted
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/32223/noaa_32223_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 4.57 MB]
Collection(s):

Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) ; NOAA Cooperative Institutes ; National Weather Service (NWS)
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:aa00514ee4a47c5b39a2afba1537a066212b82d74a20729c4b67583ef33f820b

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