Climatology of rainfall from Atlantic hurricanes in the USA from radar data

Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Climatology in the USA
Data sources (see references): NEXRAD level III data, hourly precipitation; IBtracs best track data; University of Colorado extended best track data
Available as NetCDF files and Matlab structure

Classification as TC precipitation criteria: within radius of outermost closed isobar of a TC at a given time

Scope: 100km radius around corresponding radar station

Dealing with radar outages: up to 2h gap - interpolation of precipitation, larger gaps - rescaling of frequency with fraction of available data (see formulas)

Available variables per radar station:

• Location: name [ ], coordinates [°N, °W]
• Grid: lat [°N], lon [°E]
• Frequency rescaling: re_freq [ ]

Available variables per event:

• Storm identifiers: name [ ], year [a]
• Storm total precipitation
  • Area distribution: Ptot [kg/m²], gridded (0.1x0.1°)
  • Area average: Ptot_av [kg/m²]
  • Area maximum within 0.5x0.5°: Ptot_max [kg/m²]
• Annual exceedance frequency: f(Ptot_max) [a^-1]

Relevant formulas:

re_freq = total duration of storm exposure / duration of viable measurements
f (Ptot_max) = (number of events exceeding Ptot_max / length of observation) * re_freq

Matlab structure:

• Level 1: TCP_climatology
• Level 2: station variables -> station_event_data leads to event variables
• Level 3: event variables -> Ptot leads to spatially gridded precipitation
• Level 4: Ptot-grid