ACCURACY OF QUANTITATIVE PRECIPITATION ESTIMATION BY OPERATIONAL COHERENT DUAL POLARIZATION RADAR

Abstract

Quantitative estimation of precipitation is important to management water resources and utilizes distributed hydrological modeling system. Coherent dual polarization radar is expected to advance river managements. In this study, the ability of the first operational dual polarization radar was reported, which had been installed in Kyusyu district. Using the coherent polarimetric information was the good countermeasure to the weakness of conventional weather radars such as attenuation problem of heavy rainfall, contamination of ground echo and electric power blockage of mountainous areas. The rain estimation algorism incorporated polarimetric information showed quite good accuracy comparing to the previous.