Assessment of severe hailstorms and hail risk using weather radar data

作者：Cica Roxana; Burcea Sorin^*; Bojariu Roxana

来源：Meteorological Applications, 2015, 22(4): 746-753.

DOI：10.1002/met.1512

• weather radar
• hailstorm
• damage
• hail risk

Severe storms that produce hail of significant amount or size carry a high risk, being responsible for damage at the ground. Hail spawned from these storms can affect crops, automobiles and buildings. A total of 52 hail events that occurred in May 2013 in southern Romania are used to investigate the relation between radar-derived products and damage produced by hail. Two case studies are also presented to highlight the methodology used in this study. Three-dimensional single polarization weather radar data were used to derive composite reflectivity, echo top heights, vertically integrated liquid, vertically integrated liquid density and hail kinetic energy flux to detect the hail clouds. Time integration and spatial distribution of these radar products were produced in order to capture the swath, intensity and longevity of the hailstorms. Hail and damage reports were used to link the radar variables to the effects of hailstorms at the ground. Hail size information was arbitrarily broken down into bins of reported hail to investigate the relation between hail size and radar parameters. The results show that the areas where hail and damage were reported are well captured by the footprints and magnitude of the radar variables. The average values of the radar parameters corresponding to hail size bins increase with the increase of hail diameter. A steeper increasing trend characterizes the vertically integrated liquid density and hail kinetic energy flux. The results show a good agreement between weather radar data and surface reports.

• 出版日期2015-10