Rainfall Estimation Improvements using Polarization Data from Monte Lema C-Band Weather Radar in the Southern European Alps

Simple improvements in C-band weather radar data processing are performed based on radar polarimetry. The starting point is the estimation of the differential propagation phase FiDP from the measured total differential phase ??DP. The main topics are (ground) clutter removal and quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE). For the former, a new test which checks some polarimetric quantities is added (as a trial) in a pre-existing clutter/non-clutter bin classification system. For the latter, three ‘state-of-the-art’ ??DP-based precipitation attenuation correction procedures are considered to correct ZH for precipitation attenuation. In addition, since the specific differential phase KDP proves to be a better rainfall rate estimator in heavy rain, some hybrid formulas R(ZH, KDP) are developed so that they result practically unbiased.