Spatial rainfall rate estimation through combined use of radar reflectivity and raingauge data

In this work we propose a procedure for the estimation of the spatial distribution of the rainfall rate in the observation time T over an area covered by it meteorological radar and a raingauge network. T can be the whole duration of a rainfall phenomenon or a part of it. The procedure is applied to a data set composed by PPI scans of absolute reflectivity gathered by a weather radar and by point rainfall measurement as provided by a raingauge network over the area monitored by the radar. The procedure was applied and tested on a experimental dataset related to a one-day precipitation phenomenon observed in Tuscany (Italy) on 29 October 1999, along the Arno river basin. The performance of the proposed procedure has been evaluated assuming a subset of the raingauge network as "true" rainfall rate reference.