Affiliation:
1. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO 63108, USA
Abstract
An automated quality control pre-processing algorithm for removing non-weather radar echoes from airborne Doppler radar data has been developed. The proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the time and experience level required for interactive radar data editing prior to dual-Doppler wind synthesis or data assimilation. As important as reducing the time required and skill level necessary to process an airborne Doppler dataset can be, the quality of the automated analysis is paramount. Retrieved wind data, recovered perturbation pressure data (with associated momentum check values) and correlation coefficients were computed. To quantitatively test the quality of the automated quality control algorithm, spatial Pearson correlation coefficients and momentum check values were computed. Four different (published) Electra Doppler Radar (ELDORA) datasets of convective echoes were used to stress the algorithm. Four distinct threshold levels for data removal in the automated quality control algorithm were applied to each of four ELDORA datasets. The algorithm threshold levels were labeled as follows: extremely low, low, medium, and high. Extremely low algorithm cases were deemed necessary during the data analyses and were added to the low, medium and high cases. A description of each case and the differences in the perturbation pressure momentum check values and correlation coefficients between the interactively edited fields were computed. These comparisons along with a subjective visual inspection show that the automated quality control algorithm can produce an analysis comparable—and in some cases superior—to an interactive analysis when used properly. A key benefit of this algorithm is that the skill level of a relatively inexperienced airborne radar meteorologist may be effectively increased by using the SOLO QC algorithm.
Reference15 articles.
1. A procedure to correct airborne Doppler radar data for navigation errors using the echo returned from the earth’s surface;Testud;J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol.,1995
2. Procedures to improve the accuracy of airborne Doppler radar data;Bosart;J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol.,2002
3. Oye, R., Mueller, C., and Smith, S. (1995, January 9–13). Software for radar translation, visualization, editing, and interpolation. Proceedings of the 27th Conference on Radar Meteorology, Vail, CO, USA.
4. A SOLO-based automated quality control algorithm for airborne tail Doppler radar data;Bell;J. Appl. Meteorol. Climatol.,2013
5. Observed structure, evolution, and potential intensity of category 5 Hurricane Isabel (2003) from 12 to 14 September;Bell;Mon. Weather Rev.,2008