Author(s): Mariko Ogawa; Satoru Oishi
Linked Author(s): Satoru Oishi
Keywords: Parametric approach; Snow particle size distribution; Modified gamma distribution; Median volume diameter; Radar reflectivity
Abstract: This study develops a parametric approach to estimate snow particle size distributions for the improvement of radar-based rainfall estimation. Three parameters of the modified gamma distribution were estimated using snow particle data from wintertime observation in the Minakami Highland, Gunma prefecture, Japan. A parametric approach was developed using median and maximum volume diameters and a radar reflectivity factor consisting of the sixth power of diameter. The proposed parametric approach achieves reasonable results when using observed data for more than 5000 snow particles. In the results, the ratio of estimated cloud water content to that observed ranged between 0.00 and 1.58. This study shows that the slope and shape parameters of snow particle size distributions can be expressed using the median and maximum volume diameters.
Year: 2012