The drop size distribution (DSD) is a fundamental property of rainfall because the shape of the distribution reflects the physics of rain formation processes. Given the lack of studies on the DSD at mid-latitudes, the present work focuses on the microphysical characterization of precipitation events occurring in Italy, using two different types of disdrometer. A large number of different rain e...

Polarimetric radar measurements are sensitive to the size, shape and orientation of raindrops and provide information about drop size distribution (DSD), canting angle distribution and rain rate. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a method for retrieving DSD parameters for calculating rain rate and the characteristic particle size. The DSD is assumed to be a Gamma distribution and the go...

The selection of the drop size distribution (DSD) model is one of the critical steps in rain profiling algorithm (RPA) of the NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) (Iguchi et al. 2000). RPA requires R-Ze and K-Ze relations for convective and stratiform precipitation, where K and Ze represent the attenuation and equivalent reflectivity at 13.8 GHz, respectively, and R is the rain rate....

Precipitation is an important component of the Earth’s water cycle and needs to be carefully monitored. Its large variability over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales must be taken into account. For example, hydrological models require accurate rainfall estimates at high spatial and temporal resolutions (e.g., 1 km and 5 min or higher). Obtaining accurate rainfall estimates at these sca...

Raindrop size distribution (DSD) retrieval from remote radar measurements or from in situ disdrometer measurements is an important area of research. If the shape ( ) and slope ( ) of a three-parameter gamma distribution n(D) N0D exp( D ) are related to one another, as recent disdrometer measurements suggest, the gamma DSD model is simplified to a two-parameter DSD, that is, a constrained gamma ...

Following the success of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), considerable effort has been directed at the next generation of space-based precipitation radar (PR) to be launched aboard the Global Precipitation Measuring (GPM) core satellite. The GPM mission concept is centered on the deployment of a core observatory satellite with an active dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR), o...