Precipitation Estimation Research: Preliminary Results

MESO is currently developing algorithms to estimate precipitation at
any location over the United States by combiming radar reflectivity data
from the network of NWS Doppler radars and real-time hourly rain gauge
measurements.

The two images below depict preliminary results
The images presented below represent the observed 1 hour cumulative
rain gauge data (bottom, in inches) and the estimated precipitation
estimated precipitation derived from MESO's dynamic Z-R algorithm.
Most of the gauges depicted in the lower figure were used to
were used as input to dynamic precipitation estimation algorithim.
The result of the algorithm is the precipitation amounts in the upper figure
Note the scale on the right of the upper image indicating that this
was not a heavy precipitation event. The scale was chosen simply to show the
resolution of the data.