Studies on rain structure based on ground based dropsize distribution and rain attenuation measurements over an earth space path

The drop size distribution (DSD) of rain in tropical region shows the characteristic features of different types of rain, namely, stratiform, transitional and convective. This is also indicated in behaviors of the rain decay parameter, obtained from the measurements of rain rate and attenuation over an earth-space path. The DSD parameters and rain decay parameter give similar clustering indicating the feature of convective and stratiform rain. To predict rain attenuation from rain rate, the decay parameter is modeled for different rain rate regions that provides a good matching between the predicted and measured values.