Improving short-term forecasts

Copyright: Bernhard Pospichal

In a changing climate system the near real time estimation of precipitation events like thunderstorms, flash floods or hail storms is of high importance for applications like meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, traffic, construction, water and sewer system management, etc..
The radar systems installed within CPEX-Lab, especially the 2 polarimetric weather radars and well as the 3 multi-frequency radar systems at JOYCE, are a powerful tool to provide near real time information information about precipitation systems and amounts.

Copyright: Bernhard Pospichal

In addition, CPEX-Lab aims at using JOYCE thermodynamic profiles and in future locally distributed systems to better characterize the pre-convective environment. The assimilation of such near real time information into numerical models is a a way to improve future forecast and warning capabilities. For radar observations this is currently carried out in the DFG Researcher Group RealPEP, for thermodynamic profilers in collaboration with DWD in the TDYN-PRO project.