Development of enhanced quantitative radar precipitation estimates and related hydro-meteorological applications

A three year project to further develop enhanced radar quantitative precipitation estimates and related applications has been recently agreed between the Catalan Water Agency, the Meteorological Service of Catalonia and the Group of Applied Research in Hydrometeorology (GRAHI-UPC) in Catalonia, Spain. The project has both scientific and technological aspects and from the point of view of the content is subdivided in two main subprojects covering hydrological and hydro-meteorological topics respectively.

Hydrological applications include implementing new methodologies to use raingauge and radar data from a regional network of gauges and radars (three C-band Doppler radars and about 300 telemetered automatic rainguages), covering approximately 32000 square kilometers. Moreover it is also planned to include a pilot module to adapt the hydrological model to manage water reservoirs and to implement a transport function (routing) as well as include the detailed modeling of new catchments in the region and a new integrated warning system. The hydro-meteorological subproject is divided into three main tasks: quality control of radar data, volumetric compositing and enhanced combination of gauge and radar observations. The volumetric compositing considers including a number of methodologies currently implemented in single radar observations such as corrections based on the vertical profile of reflectivity or on the estimated attenuation. Besides, a nowcasting module to predict precipitation fields and a clutter suppression fuzzy logic methodology has been recently implemented and its operational performance will be examined in detail.

The presentation gives an overview of the global project and also presents some results of the first stage, including quality control of radar data and implementation of new methodologies in the hydrological model.