Usefulness of relay-information-transfer for radar QPE

•A method of relay-information-transfer for radar QPE is proposed.•The parameter A of the Z-R relationship was selected as representative QPE information.•The applicability of the proposed method was confirmed by some application examples.•The proposed method was found to be especially useful during the initial period of a storm.

SummaryThis study proposes a method of relay-information-transfer for radar QPE (quantitative precipitation estimation) to overcome the limitation of the current QPE in Korea. The Z-R relationship was selected as the QPE information to be transferred. To examine the applicability of the proposed method, three different cases of relay-information-transfer were considered: (1) from the sea to inland, (2) from inland to another inland location, and (3) over a long distance. The results were: (1) Between the two parameters of the Z-R relationship, the parameter A was found to have an explanatory power of more than 70% of the Z-R relationship from one radar to the other. (2) All three cases showed that the relay-information-transfer of the parameter A was highly applicable, especially in the initial period of a storm. (3) Areal average rainfall and the root mean square error of the radar rain rate also confirmed that the relay-information-transfer method resulted in more reasonable estimates of the parameter A in the initial period of a storm. After the initial period, however, both the conventional method and the method proposed in this study were found to provide similar and reasonable estimates.