Improvement in algorithms for quality control of weather radar data (RADVOL-QC system)

Abstract

Data from weather radars are commonly used in meteorology and hydrology, but they are burdened with serious disturbances, especially due to the appearance of numerous non-meteorological echoes. For this reason, these data are subject to advanced quality control algorithms. The paper presents a significant improvement of the RADVOL-QC system made necessary by the appearance of an increasing number of various disturbances. New algorithms are mainly addressed to the occurrence of clutter caused by wind turbines (DP.TURBINE algorithm) and other terrain obstacles (DP.NMET algorithm) as well as various forms of echoes caused by the interaction of a radar beam with RLAN signals (set of SPIKE algorithms). The individual algorithms are based on the employment of polarimetric data as well as on the geometric analysis of echo patterns. In the paper the algorithms are described along with examples of their performance and an assessment of their effectiveness, and finally examples of the performance of the whole system are discussed.