IT-RAD weather radar data collected on 5 September 2015 during an exceptionally intense hailstorm in the Gulf of Naples

On 5 September 2015 a violent hailstorm hit the Gulf and the city of Naples in Italy. The storm originated over the Tyrrhenian Sea dropping 7–10 cm diameter hailstones along its path. The event was observed by a dual-polarization Doppler C-band, namely the Monte il Monte radar operated by the Italian Department of Civil Protection, being part of the Italian radar network (IT-RAD). 

The dataset is composed by high-resolution polar volumes of the following radar parameters: Uncorrected reflectivity Z (UZ), Corrected reflectivity Z (CZ), differential reflectivity (ZDR), uncorrected differential phase shift (PHIDP), co-polar correlation coefficient (RHOHV), Doppler Velocity (V), Doppler Width (W). The scan strategy is based on inverse elevation mode (from the highest to the lowest elevation angle) with variable PRF. The different phases of the event were well captured by the weather radar of “Monte il Monte” (lat = 41.9394 °, lon = 14.6208 °, altitude = 710 m) which, at the time of the event, was affected by a differential bias (on ZDR) of about 0.8 dB to be algebraically subtracted from the measured quantities. The user should be informed about some spot regions of missing data that might be present in the radar variables, especially on the V and differential phase. This is caused by the thresholding approach applied at RSP level on the signal quality index (SQI) to compensate for W-LAN interferences.

The dataset, consisting of 44 raw radar data volumes with 5 minutes sampling rate, is provided in a proprietary format (“Datamet”) that is manageable by using the python code named read_datamet.py that is available at https://zenodo.org/record/4897245.