Enhancing Quantitative Precipitation Estimation Over the Continental United States Using a Ground-Space Multi-Sensor Integration Approach

Quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) based on ground weather radar could be considerably affected by the broadening, ascent, and blockage of the radar beam. These problems are particularly prevalent in mountainous regions. The current study proposes a multi-sensor approach to improve the ground-radar QPE in complex terrain. The proposed method, namely the Vertical Profile of Reflectivity (VPR) Identification and Enhancement (VPR-IE), integrates NOAA´s National Mosaic QPE (NMQ) system and NASA´s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation radar (PR) measurements. This study demonstrates promising performance of VPR-IE in the Mountainous West Region of the U.S. The potential error sources of this approach and its real-time implementation over the Continental United States are addressed as well.