Influence of the Subgrid Variability of the Raindrop Size Distribution on Radar Rainfall Estimators

Abstract

Abstract This work aims at quantifying the variability of the parameters of the power laws used for rain-rate estimation from radar data, on the basis of raindrop size distribution measurements over a typical weather radar pixel. Power laws between the rain rate and the reflectivity or the specific differential phase shift are fitted to the measured values, and the variability of the parameters is analyzed. At the point scale, the variability within this radar pixel cannot be solely explained by the sampling uncertainty associated with disdrometer measurements. When parameters derived from point measurements are applied at the radar pixel scale, the resulting error in the rain amount varies between −2% and +15%.