Z-R Relationship from the Particle Size and Velocity (Parsivel) Optical Disdrometer and its Application in Estimating Areal Rainfall

In order to improve the precision of Radar rainfall estimates, the Parsivel was used for observation of rain drop spectra over Leizhou Peninsula from July to August, 2007. A total of 18070 size distributions were analyzed and the Z-R relationship of convective precipitation and mixtures of convective and stratocumulus cumulogenitus precipitation were obtained. These Z-R values were used for estimating areal rainfall and then compared with observations from automatic weather station. Cases with convective and mixtures of convective and stratocumulus cumulogenitus precipitation were selected for the evaluation. The precipitation studies were also used to evaluate the precision of the PARSIVEL measurements as compared to the rainfall data of automatic weather station.