Analysis of Maritime Precipitation Using Radar Data and Satellite Cloud Photographs

Abstract

Radar data collected by a network of ships, shore stations and aircraft over the eastern Pacific from mid-February to the end of June 1965, have been studied. Analyses of these radar data and concurrent TIROSIX photographs were made. The data sample included deep cyclones with extensive radar-detected precipitation, weaker cyclones with localized rainfall, cold anticyclones with extensive air mass showers, and blocking anticyclones with no precipitation. In the latter case it has been found that the appearance of the cloud cover is a good indicator of areas of anomalous radio propagation. Models have been prepared that illustrate the varying patterned association of cloud and rainfall characteristic of such synoptic situations. Such associations range from comparable cloud-precipitation areas through scattered showers where only a portion of the clouds contain precipitation, to complete absence of precipitation within large areas of low stratiform clouds or fog as in a blocking anticyclone.