WIND-PROFILE ESTIMATION BY CONVENTIONAL RADARS

A technique to obtain wind profiles from conventional scanning radars is proposed. This technique uses the slope of precipitation trails and their velocity to infer lower- and midtropospheric winds. Details of the implementation as well as the possibilities and limitations of the method are described in this article. Comparisons with wind profiles from radiosondes and model output for the 12 January 1991 snowstorm and for the 26 September 1991 rainstorm give satisfactory results. The combination of the results of this technique with additional information from Doppler radar is also discussed.