Principles of Cloud System Observations with X-band Radar Network: Waveforms and Operations

The ARM radar facility at Southern Great Plains (SGP) in Oklahoma is a unique radar facility in the world with dual-polarization capability at C-band, network of three X-band radars, dual frequency Ka/W-band, zenith pointing Ka-band radar and a small network of profilers. A network of X-band weather radars has been proposed to study the dynamics and microphysics. However, hitherto the focus has been primarily on stratiform and convective precipitating events for conventional meteorological applications. X-band radars are seldom used as cloud radars and are operationally used as weather radars. The network of X-band radars provides an invaluable opportunity to study the three dimensional morphology, dynamics and microphysics of cloud systems and cloud-precipitation interaction. Traditional autocovariance processing employed in weather radars does not provide improvement in sensitivity to observe clouds. This paper will consider the advanced spectral and time domain techniques to enable the X-band radar for observations of cloud systems. In addition, the paper discusses the processing design space necessary to make the radar network viable for observing the cloud systems. The paper present the results based on simulations and preliminary observations from the ARM X-band radar network.