Your Turn! - SUNY Oswego SOURCE

  • Data from DOW6 have been processed for SOURCE and are available.

  • Below, a sample file has been staged for your use.

# File Location
dow_file = 'data/cfrad.20240404_060356.104_DOW6_v170_s17_el1.92_SUR.nc'

Question 1 - Easy

Similar to the previous notebook, create a PPI display of the DOW radar data

Question 2 - Intermediate

What type of precipitation occured (i.e. hydrometeor classification) can rely upon a a variety of radar parameters. Create a display of a radar field that can used to identify specific hydrometeors.

Question 3 - Hard

Equivalent Radar Reflectivity factor can be used to determine precipitation rates. Create a function to calculate snowfall from this field and display snowfall rates using the following equation

Z-S Relationships

\(Z = A*S ^ {B}\)

Where:

  • Z = Reflectivity in dBZ

  • A = Coefficient applied to Z-S Relationship (not in the exponent)

  • S = Liquid snowfall rate

  • B = Coefficient applied to Z-S Relationship (in the exponent)

We also need to apply a snow water equivalent ratio (swe) to convert from liquid to snow (ex. 8 inches of snow –> 1 inch of rain would be 8.0).

This equation now becomes:

\(Z = swe*A*S ^ {B}\)

Solving for S, we get:

\(S = swe * (\frac{z}{a})^{1/B}\)

Where z is reflectivity in units of dB (\(z =10^{Z/10}\))

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