Hail events observed by an X-band polarimetric radar along the French Mediterranean coast

摘要

During summer 2010, in a mountainous and Mediterranean context, very strong reflectivities were observed by the Hydrix? radar located at Mount Vial (1500 m height, near Nice, France), suggesting hail occurrences. However, the operational product processing failed to provide good results since no hail detection procedure was implemented. Thus, it expectedly produced very strong rainfall rates when gauge measurements showed very weak ones. A hail detection procedure taking advantage of the radar polarimetric capabilities has been tested in off-line processing, showing much better output performances, encouraging its operational implementation. This paper presents the obtained results, and describes the approach chosen for detecting the presence of hail.