Radar Analysis for Severe Weather Detection and Tracking.
Abstract
The cell detection and tracking algorithms, were refined to incorporate Doppler radar derived estimates of tangential shear in the tracking process without significantly increasing the tracking error and the number of detected cell clusters. The Doppler data were subjected to a number of processing steps designed to minimize the false cell and cluster problem (false alarm rate). The revised thunderstorm hazard detection algorithm employs spatially filtered tangential shear data with a 10 dB minimum signal-to-noise ratio. Shear cell continuity in time is required to establish a volume cell in the absence of a reflectivity cell. National Severe Storms Laboratory Doppler radar data were analyzed to evaluate the refined algorithms. Tangential shear and Doppler spread (spectrum width) data were used separately for the detection of potentially hazardous regions. Intercomparison between isolated volume cells simultaneously detected by the Norman and Cimarron radars showed that both the shear and spread observations were aspect sensitive (anisotropic). The incorporation of Doppler (shear) data produced more than twice the number of volume cells, only slightly increased the number of clusters, and only slightly increased the rms tracking error. The Doppler data were used to develop an augmented set of attributes potentially useful for hazard detection. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1982
- Accession Number
- ADA121297
Entities
People
- Robert K. Crane