Nimbus-7 37 GHz Radiances Correlated with Radar Rain Rates over the Gulf of Mexico

In a comparison between 37 GHz brightness temperatures from the Nimbus 7 Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer and rain rates derived from the WSR-57 radars at Galveston, Texas and Apalachicola, Florida, it was found that the brightness temperatures explained 72% of the variance of the rain rates. The functional form relating these two types of data was significantly different from that predicted by models of radiative transfer through plane-parallel clouds. Most of the difference can be explained in terms of the partial coverage of footprints by convective showers. Because residual polarization is always present, even for large obscuring storms over land and water, it is hypothesized that emission by nonspherical hydrometeors is at least partly responsible for the observed polarization.