A 3-D Digital Terrain Model oriented to design a clutter predictor for Mexican Republic

The variation of rainfall intensity with height makes mandatory to look at the rainfall as close to the ground as possible, when scanning the atmosphere by means of weather radars. Weather radar measurements contain many errors, which reduce the quality of the rainfall data. In particular, ground clutter has a strong relationship with the beam elevation angle and the Digital Terrain Model (DTM) around the radar site. Clutter is present when the radar beam intercepts obstacles creating a beam blockage reflecting back part of the incident energy. Due to this relationship, it is possible to predict clutter from a DTM by calculating the amount of this "blocked" energy. We present a software tool able to manipulate a DTM in order to design a clutter predictor for weather radar. This software allows the exploring of the image (rotation, zoom in and out), calculate geographic parameters and have functions to deal with the radar propagation through the atmosphere. The software developed here, in addition, has the possibility to combine the propagation beam with the DTM in order to design a clutter predictor as well as display weather radar products to become the way standard in which all the information is viewed.