32nd Conference on Broadcast Meteorology/31st Conference on Radar Meteorology/Fifth Conference on Coastal Atmospheric and Oceanic Prediction and Processes

Thursday, 7 August 2003: 5:00 PM
3D Wind Field Retrieval Over Complex Terrain Using the Laroche-Zawadzki Single-Doppler Velocity Retrieval Technique
Yongmei Zhou, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; and R. Stull and R. Nissen
Poster PDF (2.3 MB)
The single-Doppler radar velocity retrieval (SDVR) technique of Laroche and Zawadzki (LZ) is described, and results from its application to real data observed over complex terrain in British Columbia are presented. The techniques applied include a two-step filter, scaling guess and a mixture of weak and strong constraints. Indices are designed to verify the retrieved wind field using the radar-observed radial velocity component. The main findings from the preliminary experiments are 1) the LZ technique was able to successfully retrieve the radial velocity in most regions; 2) poor retrieval was closely related to weak radial-velocity observations; and 3) the direction of radial velocity was satisfactorily recovered while its magnitude was slightly underestimated. In future work, more cases will be studied, and the successful retrievals will be assimilated into a mesoscale numerical model and evaluated using Observing System Experiments (OSEs).

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