Application of the hydrologic visibility concept to estimate rainfall measurement quality of two planned weather radars

This paper presents a practical application of the “hydrologic visibility” concept to select the future site of two planned weather radars of the French national network ARAMIS. This selection was realised by simulating the errors in radar rainfall measurement due to interactions of the radar beam with relief, and to the vertical variation of the radar reflectivity with altitude. Results show the interest of these simulations to optimise the radar location according to the objectives of radar coverage. Beyond these results, this paper highlights aspects interesting for hydrology: this type of simulation can be used to assess the radar measurement quality before initiating a quantitative exploitation of radar data, and before making a comparison or a combination with rain gauge data.