Analysis of the 1 November 2015 heavy rainfall episode in Algarve by using weather radar and rain gauge data.

The trigger for the study presented in this paper was the extreme rain event of 1 November 2015 in Algarve region. The main objective was the analysis and improvement of the precipitation field using a radar-rain gauge merging method. Ordinary kriging with radar-based error correction has been applied to hourly values of precipitation from both sensors. The merging technique allowed keeping the better radar spatial pattern, being the respective estimates corrected by the rain gauges observations. The procedure led to a reduction in the errors of the precipitation estimates, evaluated by cross-validation, when compared to univariate interpolation of rain gauge observation or radar rain product. Finally, some discussion is also added on the problematic of flooding in urban areas, especially those with absent or deficient urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]