Rainfall rates estimated from multi-year X-band weather radar observations in Hamburg (LAWR HHG level 2 rr) (Version 1)

hdl:21.14106/dcbaabcbb8fc09113072c7886e502bb568e2ebb1

Burgemeister, Finn; Clemens, Marco; Ament, Felix

Dataset Group
Active Remote SensingatmosphereLocal observationsLong term observationsobservational dataPrecipitationradar
Summary
An operational, single-polarized X-band weather radar (WRX) provides measurements in Hamburg’s city center since 2013. This local area weather radar (LAWR) is located on the rooftop of the high-rise building "Geomatikum" in Hamburg (HHG), which is the location of the Meteorological Institute of the Universität Hamburg. The radar operates at one elevation angle with a high temporal 30 s, range 60 m, and sampling 1° resolution refining observations of the German nationwide C-band radars within a 20 km scan radius.

Several sources of radar-based errors were adjusted gradually improving the rainfall rate, e.g. the radar calibration, alignment, attenuation, noise, non-meteorologial echoes. This data set group includes monthly data sets of hourly netCDF-files of the rainfall rate (rr) in level 2. The unit is mm/h. Attenuation correction was already applied. The measurement data is available on the original polar grid (360 azimuth angles and 333 range gates) with it's center at the radar location. Latitude and longitude coordinates are included within the files. The variable 'pia_stability' is a quality flag of the stability of the applied attenuation correction affecting the rainfall rate. The level 2 rainfall rate was generated from the radar reflectivity factor (dbz) in level 1 (see data set group "Reflectivities of multi-year X-band weather radar observations in Hamburg (LAWR HHG level 1 dbz)"). The rainfall rate was retrieved from the attenuation-corrected reflectivity using a power-law relationship between these two quantities (Z-R relationship). The standard Marshall-Palmer relationship was applied. The rainfall rate was evaluated to measurements of micro rain radars (MRR). The rainfall rates of WRX/LAWR HHG and MRRs are in good agreement.

These data sets of rainfall rates facilitate refined studies on the spatial and temporal scale of precipitation and further hydrological research, e.g. input data for high-resolution modelling, in an urban area.

Please note that some measurement times are missing due to maintenance and technical errors of the radar. Missing measurement times are not temporal interpolated nor included within the data sets with filled values. The data availability of the years is: 2013 = 57 %, 2014 = 75 %, 2015 = 97 %, 2016 = 98 %, 2017 = 93 %, 2018 = 96 %, 2019 = 98 %, 2020 = 79 %, 2021 = 61 %.

Now a more recent version (Version 2: https://www.wdc-climate.de/ui/entry?acronym=LAWR_UHH_HHG_lev2_v2) exists with the following changes:
- We provide daily instead of hourly files to reduce the number of files for better data handling. For the days 23.09.2014, 12.03.2015, 09.06.2015, 05.07.2017, and 01.02.2018 there are two files to avoid additional time dependencies of variables because of changes in calibration or alignment parameters.
- We changed the data type (double to int64) and the unit days since 1970-01-01 to seconds since 1970-01-01 of the time coordinate.
- We changed the standard names / long names of the variables azimuth, range and ele.
- We added the integer variable grid_mapping with the attributes grid_mapping_name ("radar_lidar_radial_scan"), latitude_of_projection_origin, longitude_of_projection_origin and height_of_projection_origin, as suggested by the CfRadial conventions. Since the grid_mapping variable provides the same information as the variables lat_center, lon_center and zsl_center, we removed them. We added the attribute grid_mapping to the variable rr and dbz.
Newer Version(s)
doi:10.26050/WDCC/LAWR_UHH_HHG_v2
Project
LAWR_UHH (Hamburg Local Area Weather Radars)
Spatial Coverage
Longitude 9.67 to 10.28 Latitude 53.39 to 53.75
Temporal Coverage
2013-05-27 to 2021-08-11 (calendrical)
Use constraints
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Data Catalog
World Data Center for Climate
Size
6.87 TiB (7552805374496 Byte)
Format
NetCDF
Status
will be continued
Creation Date
Future Review Date
2032-05-08
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Cite as
[ Derived from parent entry - See data hierarchy tab ]
Burgemeister, Finn; Clemens, Marco; Ament, Felix (2022). Multi-year X-band weather radar observations in Hamburg (LAWR HHG). World Data Center for Climate (WDCC) at DKRZ. https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/LAWR_UHH_HHG

BibTeX RIS
Description
Level 2a - Geophysical Variable - High level Quality Control - approved by the authors (04.05.2022): For example, we compared the LAWR HHG rainfall rate with observations of micro rain radars. The rainfall rates of both measurement devices are in good agreement. Additionally, we checked spatial patterns of several single measurements and the the monthly rainfall sums derived from the rainfall rates for continuity.
Description
Some measurement times are missing (not included within the data sets) due to maintenance and technical errors. The data availability of the years is: 2013 = 57 %, 2014 = 75 %, 2015 = 97 %, 2016 = 98 %, 2017 = 93 %, 2018 = 96 %, 2019 = 98 %, 2020 = 79 %, 2021 = 61 %. Spatial values are not missing.

Is previous version of

[1] DOI Burgemeister, Finn; Clemens, Marco; Ament, Felix. (2024). Multi-year X-band weather radar observations in Hamburg (LAWR HHG) (Version 2). doi:10.26050/WDCC/LAWR_UHH_HHG_v2

Is documented by

[1] DOI Lammert, Andrea; Grützun, Verena; Stamnas, Erasmia. (2018). The SAMD Product Standard (Standardized Atmospheric Measurement Data). doi:10.5281/zenodo.1741364

Is compiled by

[1] DOI Lengfeld, K.; Clemens, M.; Münster, H.; Ament, F. (2014). Performance of high-resolution X-band weather radar networks – the PATTERN example. doi:10.5194/amt-7-4151-2014

Parent

Multi-year X-band weather radar observations in Hamburg (LAWR HHG) (Version 1)
Details

Attached Datasets ( 96 )

Details for selected entry

Parent project(s)

Hamburg Local Area Weather Radars

[Entry acronym: LAWR_UHH_HHG_lev2_rr] [Entry id: 3899893]