Observing Precipitation with Vertically-pointing Radar: Concepts & Methods for Very High Frequencies

Over the previous years, precipitation signal has been traditionally considered as clutter (unwanted echoes) by the radar community. Thus, most of the VHF signal-processing and analysis have avoided the treatment of the precipitation signal. This work proceeds differently by identifying the potential that VHF radars have in the study of precipitation physics. The book focuses on the following questions: How can we use VHF radar as an operational tool for the study of precipitation physics? What are the typical backscatter signals that rain and turbulence produce at VHF band during precipitation events? The key to answer these questions lays in the unique potential that VHF radars have for simultaneously measuring air vertical velocity and precipitation intensity. The book should be particularly useful to specialist, researchers, graduate students and instructors working in the interdisciplinary fields of radio science, environmental remote sensing, radar meteorology and atmospheric physics.