ALL MET SENSORS

Location: Taiwan

The Southwest Monsoon Experiment / Terrain-influenced Monsoon Rainfall Experiment is a joint Taiwan - US Monsoon Rainfall Study.

The goal of the 2008 campaign is to improve the capability of quantitative precipitation estimation and forecasting during the Asian Summer Monsoon season. This is a continuation of the 2007 pilot study in which 4 Micro Rain Radars were deployed.

For further reading please see:

Website:  www.ihs.ncu.edu.tw

Paper: SoWMEX/TiMREX (pdf - 4.72 Mbs)

Location: North Carolina, USA

A mobile Micro Rain Radar known as the M²R² has been deployed as part of a network of MRRs in North Carolina to help with ice storm prediction.

For live and raw data from this network see http://mmrr.renci.org/

For RENCI news on the Mobile Micro Rain Radar please see M²R² news

Location: Multiple locations across Europe

Details:

The main goal of the GOP is to gather a comprehensive data set suitable for testing hypotheses and new modelling techniques.

Micro Rain Radars (at least 13) will be used to observe rain drop size distribution over flat terrain (including marine) and over orographic terrain.

Associated websites:
GOP overview
MRR sites across Europe
Drop Size Distribution (GOP-3)

Location: Cabauw, the Netherlands

The objectives of the BBC2-campaign (BALTEX BRIDGE Campaign) are to gain a better understanding of cloud processes. The BBC2 campaign was jointly organised by the University of Bonn and KNMI.

Four MRRs and a Metek SODAR/RASS system were among the instruments used.

Associated websites:

Main BBC2 website
Main BBC2 website instrument page
University of Bonn's BBC-2 page
University of Bonn's main MRR page
University of Bonn's MRR measurement principle page

Related presentation:
Spatial Spatial and temporal variability of drop size distribution from vertically pointing micro rain radar (MRR) (ppt)

Location: Andes

In a field campaign from December 2001 to April 2003, as part of the PREDICT project to understand the precise amount of precipitation in the tropical mountain forests of the Andes, measurements of vertical rainfall profiles were performed with the Micro Rain Radar.

Also deployed was a NES210 Eigenbrodt Fog Collector to evaluate the characteristics of six manual quadratic polypropylene mesh collectors and a BIRAL VPF-730 forwardscatter meter to measure the atmospheric extinction and horizontal visibility, rain rate, particle number, droplet spectra and rain type.

Article:
Variability of precipitation in the Reserva Biólogica San Francisco / Southern Ecuador www.lyonia.org/viewArticle.php?articleID=407

Project: The GLOWA-DANUBE Project

Location: Upper Danube Catchment Area

Websites: www.glowa.org

               GLOWA_DANUBE Project on the LCRS website

Project: Various

Location: Laboratory for Climatology and Remote Sensing
               (LCRS)

Website: http://lcrs.geographie.uni-marburg.de/

Research overview:
               http://lcrs.geographie.uni-marburg.de/index.php?id=28

(The LCRS's meteorological equipment includes the Metek Micro Rain Radar, the Metek USA-1 ultrasonic anemometer and the Biral VPF-730 present weather sensor - to see all equipment at LCRS visit their facilities page at http://lcrs.geographie.uni-marburg.de/index.php?id=45)

Project: PALAU  Project

Location: Observation site in Aimeliik State, Republic of Palau.

One of the observation sites taking part is the Aimeliik State site to which a Micro Rain Radar was added in March 2004.

Websites: Aimeliik Site and PALAU (main page)

Presentation: Activities of Palau (Western Pacific Program) Observational research (pdf 1.9 Mb)

Project: SHARE

Location: Northern California Sierra Nevada mountain

The field phase will take place in December 2008 to January 2009 and one Micro Rain Radar will be located near the crest at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory and another at a site in the lee of the Sierras. The continuous monitoring of the crest and lee-side precipitation by the Micro Rain Radars will complement aircraft measurements.

The high temporal and spatial resolution of the Micro Rain Radar makes it well suited to observe the details of snow and weak precipitation structures.

Report: SHARE experimental design overview (pdf 7.4 Mb)

Project: AMMA (African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses)

Location: Nangatchori, Benin

AMMA is an international project to improve knowledge and understanding of the West African Monsoon (WAM).

In 2006, as part of this programme, the Universities of Bonn and Cologne took measurements over a year period with a Micro Rain Radar, Microwave Profiler and a Lidar Ceilometer at the Nangatchori observation station.

Project: RAINMAP

Location: UK

RAINMAP is an EPSRC funded network that aims to foster communication and collaboration between diverse communities interested in developing and applying models of rain rate variation to a wide range of engineering problems.  Please see more information on their website www.rainmap.rl.ac.uk/default.htm

At the RAINMAP Meeting in September 2007 Dr Chris Kidd (University of Birmingham) presented a paper entitled "Experiences with a newtwork of Micro Rain Radars" in which Tipping Bucket Rain Gauges and Micro Rain Radars were compared. To view this presentation please click on:

Experiences with a network of Micro Rain Radars (8 Mb pdf)

Published papers

• Rain is 'Earthquakes in the Sky'
  
• Rain: Relaxations in the sky
  
• A complexity view of rainfall.
  
• Rain Observations with a vertically looking micro rain radar (MRR)
  
• Vertical structure of rain parameters as observed with Micro Rain Radars
  
• Rain observations with micro rain radar (MRR) over Thumba
  
• Micro Rain Radar data visualization tool
  
• Precipitation rate profile of MR-Radar and comparison with optical rain gauge in Kototabang West Sumatera Indonesia
  
• Estimation of the Melting Layer from a Micro Rain Radar (MRR) data at the Cloud Physics Observation System (CPOS) site at Daegwallyeong Weather Station
  
• Radar Measurement of Rain Storage in a Deciduous Tree (pdf)
  
• Time-height evolution of measured raindrop size distributions (pdf 3.71 Mb)
  
• Gradients of fog and rain in a tropical montane cloud forest of southern Ecuador and its chemical composition
  
• Areal homogeneity of Z-R-relations
  
• Quantitative rainfall measurements: A comparison of Micro Rain Radars (MRRs) and Rain Gauges

For Micro Rain Radar product pages please click the link in the grey box below. (Biral are the official Metek distributors for UK, Ireland, USA, Canada and South Africa).