Analysis of the characteristics of snow drop size distribution in the southwest coast of the Korean Peninsula

Understanding the variability of the size distributions of precipitation particles is essential in considerations relating to the physics of precipitation. It is also of practical importance in radar precipitation estimates. In this study, we presented characteristics of snow drop size distribution (SSD) in the southwest coast of Korean Peninsula from December 2014 to March 2015 using a PARticle Size and VELocity (PARSIVEL) disdrometer. Compared to an empirical fall velocity-size relation of Locatelli and Hobbs(1974) for dry snow, the observed fall speeds are similar to that. The actual SSD has most peaks in the D<2mm region (D: diameter of the snow drop size). This may be due to the fact that large snow particles break up in the process of falling. An exponential distribution and a gamma distribution were developed based on the precipitation data observed in this area. We found that the gamma distribution is better than the exponential distribution for fitting the actual distribution. We expected that these results will lead to better understanding of microphysical process in snow storms occurred over Korean peninsula.