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This article proposes and presents a novel approach to the characterization of winter precipitation and modeling of radar observables through a synergistic use of advanced optical disdrometers for microphysical and geometrical measurements of ice and snow particles (in particular, a multi-angle snowflake camera—MASC), image processing methodology, advanced method-of-moments scattering computations, and state-of-the-art polarimetric radars. The article also describes the newly built and established MASCRAD (MASC + Radar) in-situ measurement site, under the umbrella of CSU-CHILL Radar, as well as the MASCRAD project and 2014/2015 winter campaign. We apply a visual hull method to reconstruct 3D shapes of ice particles based on high-resolution MASC images, and perform "particle-by-particle" scattering computations to obtain polarimetric radar observables. The article also presents and discusses selected illustrative observation data, results, and analyses for three cases with widely-differing meteorological settings that involve contrasting hydrometeor forms. Illustrative results of scattering calculations based on MASC images captured during these events, in comparison with radar data, as well as selected comparative studies of snow habits from MASC, 2D video-disdrometer, and CHILL radar data, are presented, along with the analysis of microphysical characteristics of particles. In the longer term, this work has potential to significantly improve the radar-based quantitative winter-precipitation estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The calculation of fade margins required to meet the user-specified availability criteria needs to take into consideration a number of meteorological factors specific to the earth-station location. One such factor is the annual average of the freezing level height. Information on this height is available in ITU-R Recommendation P. 839-3, which provides contours that are generated on a 1.5° by 1.5° latitude by longitude resolution grid. This paper compares these heights with the bright-band heights (BBH) obtained from the precipitation radar on-board the TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) satellite. Four years of TRMM radar data have been analysed, and their averages are compared within the latitude range covered by the satellite orbit (35°N to 35°S). Comparisons show that the radar bright-band heights typically occur 300 m below the 0°C isotherm heights. However, results also indicate that this difference may be latitude dependent. Also examined are the year-to-year variability and the seasonal variation. In the former case, only 1998 showed BBH values which are somewhat higher in tropical regions, this year having had one of the strongest El Niño events recorded. In the latter case, results show significant seasonal variation, becoming more pronounced at higher latitudes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]