Rainfall estimation improvements using polarization data from Monte Lema C-band weather radar in the southern European alps

Simple improvements in C-band weather radar data processing are performed based on radar polarimetry. The starting point is the estimation of the differential propagation phase Φ
_DP
from the measured total differential phase Ψ
_DP
. The main topics are (ground) clutter removal and quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE). For the former, a new test which checks some polarimetric quantities is added (as a trial) in a pre-existing clutter/non-clutter bin classification system. For the latter, three `state-of-the-art' Φ
_DP
-based precipitation attenuation correction procedures are considered to correct Z
_H
for precipitation attenuation. In addition, since the specific differential phase K
_D
P proves to be a better rainfall rate estimator in heavy rain, some hybrid formulas R(Z
_H
, K
_D
P) are developed so that they result practically unbiased.