Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Automated Processing of Doppler Radar Data
for Severe Weather Warnings
Paul Joe et al. *
Environment Canada
Canada
1. Introduction
Radar is the only operational tool that provides observations of severe weather producing
thunderstorms on a fine enough temporal or spatial resolution (minutes and
kilometers) that enables warnings of severe weather. It can provide a three- dimensional
view about every five to ten minutes at a spatial resolution of the order of 1 km or less. The
development and evolution of intense convective precipitation is closely linked to
thunderstorms and so understanding of the microphysics and dynamics of precipitation is
needed to understand the evolution of thunderstorms as diabatic and precipitation
processes modify and create hazardous rain, hail, wind and lightning.
The characteristics and proportion of severe weather is climatologically or geographically
dependent. For example, the highest incidence of tornadoes is in the central U.S. whereas the
tallest thunderstorms are found in Argentina (Zipser et al, 2006). Warning services developed at
National Hydrological and Meteorological Services (NHMS) often originate because of a
particular damaging severe weather event and ensuing expectations of the public. Office
organization, resources and expertise are critical considerations in the use of radar for the
preparation of severe weather warnings. Warnings also imply a level of legal liability requiring
the authority of an operational National Hydrological Meteorological Service. All available data
and timely access is critical and requires substantial infrastructure, ongoing support and
maintenance. Besides meteorological data, eye witness observations and reports are also
essential element in the issuance of tornado warnings (Doswell et al, 1999; Moller, 1978).
This contribution will discuss operational or operational prototypical radar processing,
visualization systems for the production of convective severe weather warnings. The focus
* Sandy Dance 2 , Valliappa Lakshmanan 3 , Dirk Heizenreder 4 , Paul James 4 , Peter Lang 4 ,
Thomas Hengstebeck 4 , Yerong Feng 5 , P.W. Li 6 , Hon-Yin Yeung 6 , Osamu Suzuki 7 , Keiji Doi 7 and Jianhua Dai 8
2 Bureau of Meteorology, Australia
3 CIMMS/OU/National Severe Storms Laboratory, USA
4 Deutcher Wetterdienst, Germany,
5 Guandong Meteorological Bureau, China Meteorological Agency, China
6 Hong Kong Observatory, China
7 Japan Meteorological Agency, Japan
8 Shanghai Meteorological Bureau, China Meteorological Agency, China
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