Rainfall events and Hailstorms Analysis Program (RHAP)

摘要

RHAP (Rainfall events and Hailstorms Analysis Program) is a new tooldesigned for analysing rainfall events and hailstorms. The aim of thiscontribution is to present the RHAP tool, which is under development, andits application to different hailstorms and rainfall episodes. The programassimilates multiple data bases (meteorological radar, meteorological modeloutputs, radiosondes and surface observations) with the purpose to getbetter event reanalysis. It is based on Storm Cell Identification andTracking Algorithm (SCIT) with an improved version of the method, and alsoon a new 2-D algorithm which automatically identifies and classifies theprecipitation systems distinguishing between Mesoscale Convective Systems,Multicellular systems, Isolated convection, Stratiform precipitation andConvective precipitation embedded in stratiform precipitation. These twomethods allow to obtain the 2-D and 3-D features of the precipitation systemlike top height of the cells, maximum reflectivity, Vertical IntegratedLiquid content (VIL) and VIL density (VILD), kinetic energy, severe hailprobability (SHP), number of 3-D cells exceeding a given threshold, Z/Rrelations,... that are useful to analyse both heavy rainfall and hailevents. As application, two events produced on NE Spain are discussed: theheavy rainfall event recorded on 6 September 2004, characterised by agreat number of cells that crossed the affected area and that had a maximumactivity associated to high values of VIL(37.5 kg/m2), Z_max (54 dBZ) andSHP (73%); and the hail event produced on 29 August 2004, with a rapiddevelopment of the convective system and with hail observations in surfacewhen the following thresholds were exceeded: Z_max=54 dBZ, VIL=25 kg/m2 and SHP=63%.