Clutter and shadowed areas characterization of meteorological radars

The aim of the present study is to characterize the orographic operating environment of meteorological radars in terms of ground target and shielded areas. Given an antenna radiation pattern and scanning program, on the one hand the results concerning ground clutter areal distribution can be used with profit in the preliminary characterization of a radar site and for the choice of suitable ground clutter rejection procedures; on the other hand information concerning the minimum height at which a given volumetric pixel of the atmosphere is optically seen by the radar are in turn very useful in the correction procedures associated with the vertical profile of precipitation rate and the comparison with rain gauge networks. We note that in both the two cases the capabilities offered by the developed tool have been thought of as being complementary and not alternative to methods that use radar-derived information only