GENERATING PROBABILISTIC ESTIMATES OF RAINFALL RATES FROM RADAR REFLECTIVITY MEASUREMENTS

摘要

A method and system for generating probabilistic estimates of precipitation intensity from radar reflectivity measurements is provided. In an embodiment, an agricultural intelligence computer system receives radar reflectivity measurements for a particular location from an external data source. The agricultural intelligence computer system constructs a probability distribution of drop sizes describing the probability that the precipitation included drops of various sizes based on the radar reflectivity measurements. The agricultural intelligence computer system samples a plurality of values from the probability of distribution of drop sizes and uses the plurality of values and the radar reflectivity measurements to compute a plurality of rainfall rates. Based on the plurality of rainfall rates, the agricultural intelligence computer system constructs a probability distribution of rainfall rates for the particular location.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
using a digital weather computing system, receiving over a network at the digital weather computing system comprising one or more processors and digital memory, electronic digital data comprising a plurality of values representing radar reflectivity measurements at a particular location at a particular instance in time; using digitally programmed drop size distribution creation instructions in the digital weather computing system, creating a probabilistic distribution of rainfall drop sizes, based, at least in part, on the plurality of values representing radar reflectivity measurements at the particular location at the particular instance in time; using digitally programmed distribution sampling instructions in the digital weather computing system, sampling a plurality of drop size values from the probabilistic distribution of rainfall drop sizes; using digitally programmed precipitation intensity computation instructions in the digital weather computing system, computing a plurality of rainfall rates by, for each drop size value of the plurality of drop size values, computing a corresponding rainfall rate using the drop size value and one or more reflectivity values of the plurality of reflectivity values representing radar reflectivity measurements at the particular location at the particular instance in time; using digitally programmed fertility advisor instructions in the digital weather computing system, computing and displaying a probability distribution of precipitation intensities from the plurality of rainfall rates for the particular location.