Broad band radar for high resolution observation of precipitation

A new high resolution Ku-band Doppler radar with scanning capability for meteorological applications has been developed. With the new system design, the radar can accurately measure the radar reflectivity factor with 4-m resolution at the lowest usable height of 60 m from short distance (e.g., minimum detectable reflectivity at 60 m is 5 dBz) to a few km (e.g., min. det. refl. at 2 km is 30 dBz) for 100-mW power using a pulse compression technique. Details of the system design, signal processing algorithm, and data acquisition procedures are described. To demonstrate the accuracy of the system, the radar reflectivity measurements are compared with a Joss-Waldvogel disdrometer measurements, and fairly good agreement is shown. The ability of the system to capture the backscattered signal and Doppler spectrum from rain volume at low altitude with high resolution is demonstrated for both convective and stratiform rain type events.