Application of a New QPE Technique Using an Adaptive Parameters Finding Method for a Weather Radar in Cordoba, Argentina

SUAREZ MATIAS; POFFO, DENIS; MONTAMAT, IGNACIO; COMES RAUL; SAFFE, JORGE; INGARAMO RICARDO; PIEROBON, EDGARDO; SANDALIO, LUCIA; LIGHEZZOLO, ANDRES; CARANTI, GIORGIO; RODRÍGUEZ, ANDRÉS

Granada

Congreso; 39th IAHR World Congress; 2022

A new QPE (Quantitative Precipitation Estimation) method based on Z-R and Z-Zdr-R relations with adaptive parameters is applied. This method is a variation of WMM (Window Matching Method) and WCMM (Window Correlation Matching Method) and it is implemented for the first Argentine C-band weather radar: the RMA1. The dataset used here consists of a collection of 5 storm events that occured during April 2019 and 2020 over the province of Córdoba. Additionally, two spatial configurations are evaluated in order to assess the quality of QPE for both short and extended radar range. One based on a space domain divided into three concentric half rings every 40 km and another with a space domain consisting in a half disk with 120 km radius and no division both centered on the RMA1 weather radar. To evaluate the QPE obtained through the relations constructed in this work, a storm event occured on April 9, 2021, was analyzed and accumulated precipitation estimated from RMA1 was compared with accumulated precipitation measured by rain gauges. Results show that the QPE from Z-R and Z-Zdr-R relations from a domain divided in half rings performs better than QPE obtained from Z-R and Z-Zdr-R without a divided domain. Moreover, results show that Z-Zdr-R performs better than Z-R relations. In regards to the technique, results show that WCMM method is associated with better QPE when the domain is divided in half rings, and the proposed technique performs better when the domain is not divided.