PRECIPITATION IDENTIFICATION BY UTILIZING PARTICULATE SIZE AND VELOCITY, EXTINCTION COEFFICIENTS AND HUMIDITY MEASUREMENTS

摘要

A present weather observing system (10) including means (12) for providing a beam of radiation in the atmosphere and means (14) for detecting scattered radiation from suspended or precipitating particles within a sample volume (16), the detecting means (14) having a field of view intersecting the beam to define the sample volume (16). The invention further includes means (18) for determining the size and velocity of at least one particle precipitating through the sample volume, and means (20) responsive to the means (18) for determining size and velocity for identifying the type of precipitation.