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The NOAA W-band radar was deployed on a P-3 aircraft during a study of storm fronts off the U.S. West Coast in 2015 in the second CalWater (CalWater-2) field program. This paper presents an analysis of measured equivalent radar reflectivity factor Z em profiles to estimate the path-averaged precipitation rate and profiles of precipitation microphysics. Several approaches are explored using information derived from attenuation of Z em as a result of absorption and scattering by raindrops. The first approach uses the observed decrease of Z em with range below the aircraft to estimate column mean precipitation rates. A hybrid approach that combines Z em in light rain and attenuation in stronger rain performed best. The second approach estimates path-integrated attenuation (PIA) via the difference in measured and calculated normalized radar cross sections (NRCS m and NRCS c , respectively) retrieved from the ocean surface. The retrieved rain rates are compared to estimates from two other systems on the P-3: a Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) and a Wide-Swath Radar Altimeter (WSRA). The W-band radar gives reasonable values for rain rates in the range 0–10 mm h −1 with an uncertainty on the order of 1 mm h −1 . Mean profiles of Z em , raindrop Doppler velocity, attenuation, and precipitation rate in bins of rain rate are also computed. A method for correcting measured profiles of Z em for attenuation to estimate profiles of nonattenuated profiles of Z e is examined. Good results are obtained by referencing the surface boundary condition to the NRCS values of PIA. Limitations of the methods are discussed.
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Fairall et al. (2017) studied this question.
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