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A short-baseline weather radar network consisting of Ku-band broadband radars (BBR) for meteorological application is under development. The BBR is a short-range and high-resolution Doppler radar for meteorological application, whose range and temporal resolution are several meters and 1 min per volume scan, respectively and coverage is from 50 m to 15 or 20 km. A radar network consisting of BBRs is useful for rapidly and accurately detecting and analyzing small-scale weather phenomena such as localized scattered thunderstorms, tornadoes, and downbursts in locations with a complex topography such as urban or mountainous area. The BBR network project plans to deploy three BBRs in the north Osaka, Japan, area and to observe and analyzing small-scale weather phenomena in detail. At present, two functioning BBRs have been deployed in the Osaka area. This paper presents a description of the BBR network project and its preliminary assessment. Observations of the two-BBR test bed derive expected properties of the three-BBR network, which efficiently covers troposphere in the overlapped area with a minimum observable altitude of tens of meters and a sensitivity of 10.2 dBZ (spatial average at a 5000-km altitude). Integrated reflectivity and preliminary algorithm for multiradar products in the two-BBR test bed, presenting a promising fine structure of precipitation cells, is also shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three algorithm intercomparison experiments have recently been conducted as part of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project with the goal of (a) assessing the skill of current satellite rainfall algorithms, (b) understanding the differences between them, and (c) moving toward improved algorithms. The results of these experiments are summarized and intercompared in this paper. It was found that the skill of satellite rainfall algorithms depends on the regime being analyzed, with algorithms producing very good results in the tropical western Pacific and over Japan and its surrounding waters during summer, but relatively poor rainfall estimates over western Europe during late winter. Monthly rainfall was estimated most accurately by algorithms using geostationary infrared data, but algorithms using polar data [Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer and Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I)] were also able to produce good monthly rainfall estimates when data from two satellites were available. In most eases, SSM/I algorithms showed significantly greater skill than IR-based algorithms in estimating instantaneous rain rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]