11th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace

P5.6

The Use of Radial Velocity Derivatives to Diagnose Rotation and Divergence

Travis M. Smith, CIMMS/Univ. of Oklahoma and NOAA/NSSL, Norman, OK; and K. L. Elmore

Azimuthal and radial shear fields are extracted from single-Doppler radial velocity data using a two-dimensional, local, linear least-squares technique. The presentation shows how these fields are derived as well as how the technique may be applied to detect and assess the properties of storm-scale rotation and boundaries.

We illustrate that this method of calculating the shear properties of a radial velocity field has several practical uses. Since radial velocity fields cannot be easily visualized in three-dimensional space, the scalar azimuthal and radial shear derivatives provide a useful tool for viewing velocity-derived fields that are not radar-relative. These derived quantities may also be easily integrated into a multi-radar mosaic field or used by multi-radar, multi-sensor algorithms. Image processing techniques are employed to isolate features of significance and remove spurious or noisy data.

extended abstract  Extended Abstract (532K)

Poster Session 5, Radar and Convection, Poster Session
Tuesday, 5 October 2004, 3:00 PM-4:30 PM

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