Validating NEXRAD MPE and Stage III precipitation products for uniform rainfall on the Upper Guadalupe River Basin of the Texas Hill Country

SummaryThis study examines the performance of the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) Multisensor Precipitation Estimator (MPE) and Stage III precipitation products, using a high-density rain gauge network located on the Upper Guadalupe River Basin of the Texas Hill Country. As point-area representativeness error of gauge rainfall is a major concern in assessment of radar rainfall estimation, this study develops a new method to automatically select uniform rainfall events based on coefficient of variation criterion of 3 by 3 radar cells. Only gauge observations of those uniform rainfall events are used as ground truth to evaluate radar rainfall estimation. This study proposes a new parameter probability of rain detection (POD) instead of the conditional probability of rain detection (CPOD) commonly used in previous studies to assess the capability that a radar or gauge detects rainfall. Results suggest that: (1) gauge observations of uniform rainfall better represent ground truth of a 4 × 4 km2 radar cell than non-uniform rainfall; (2) the MPE has higher capability of rain detection than either gauge-only or Stage III; (3) the MPE has much higher linear correlation and lower mean relative difference with gauge measurements than the Stage III does; (4) the Stage III tends to overestimate precipitation (20%), but the MPE tends to underestimate (7%).