Rainfields: the Australian Bureau of Meteorology system for quantitative precipitation estimation

This paper describes rainfields, the system used by the Bureau of Meteorology to derive quantitative estimates of rainfall that are based on rain gauge and radar information. Details of the quality control algorithms used on the raw radar reflectivity data, the conversion of radar reflectivity to rainfall and real-time updating of the mean field bias are given in the paper. Rainfields includes a database of 10-minute rainfall accumulations that are used to serve rainfall accumulations to a number of clients in a number of formats. A gauge interpolation algorithm uses the orientation of the rain field derived from the radar accumulation, and the gauge and radar fields are then blended into a single product using conditional simulation. Real time verification is provided using the 30-minute gauge data and an independent set of daily rain gauges.