Heavy Rainfall Monitoring by Polarimetric C-Band Weather Radars

Piemonte region, in the north-western Italy, is characterized by complex orography and Mediterranean influence that often causes extreme rainfall event, during the warm season. Although the region is monitored by a dense gauge network (more than one gauge per 100 km2), the ground measurements are often inadequate to properly observe intense and highly variable precipitations. Polarimetric weather radars provide a unique way to monitor rainfall over wide areas, with the required spatial detail and temporal resolution. Nevertheless, most European weather radar networks are operating at C-band, which may seriously limit quantitative precipitation estimation in heavy rainfall due to relevant power signal attenuation. Phase measurements, unlike power measurements, are not affected by signal attenuation. For this reason, polarimetric radars, for which the differential phase shift measurements are available, provide an additional way in which to estimate precipitation, which is immune to signal attenuation. In this work differential phase based rainfall estimation techniques are applied to analyze two flash-floods: the first one occurred on the Ligurian Apennines on 16 August 2006 and the second occurred on 13 September 2008, causing rain accumulations above 270 mm in few hours.