Classification of Tropical Precipitating Systems Using Wind Profiler Spectral Moments. Part II: Statistical Characteristics of Rainfall Systems and Sensitivity Analysis

Abstract

An automated precipitation algorithm to classify tropical precipitating systems has been described in a companion paper (Part I). In this paper, the algorithm has been applied to 18 months of lower atmospheric wind profiler measurements to study the vertical structure and statistical features of different types of tropical precipitating systems over Gadanki, India. The shallow precipitation seems to be an important component of tropical precipitation, because it is prevalent for about 23% of the observations, with a rainfall fraction of 16%. As expected, the deep convective systems contribute maximum (60%) to the total rainfall, followed by transition and stratiform precipitation. Nonprecipitating clouds (clouds associated with no surface rainfall) are predominant in transition category, indicating that evaporation of precipitation is significant in this region. The quantitative rainfall statistics in different precipitation regimes are compared and contrasted between themselves and also with those reported at different geographical locations obtained with a wide spectrum of instruments, from rain gauges to profilers and scanning radars. The results herein agree with the reports based on scanning radar measurements but differ from profiler-based statistics. The discrepancies are discussed in light of differences in classification schemes, variation in geographical conditions, etc. The sensitivity of the algorithm on the choice of thresholds for identifying different types of precipitating systems is also examined.