LAUSR

AbstractMulti-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) radar only (Q3RAD), Q3RAD local gauge corrected (Q3gc), dual polarization (Dual Pol), legacy Precipitation Processing System (PPS), and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) stage IV product performance were evaluated for data collected east of the Rockies during the 2014 warm season. For over 22 000 radar QPE–gauge data pairs, Q3RAD had a higher correlation coefficient (0.85) and a lower mean absolute error (9.4 mm) than the Dual Pol (0.83 and 10.5 mm, respectively) and PPS (0.79 and 10.8 mm, respectively). Q3RAD performed best when the radar beam sampled precipitation within or above the melting layer because of its use of a reflectivity mosaic corrected for brightband contamination. Both NCEP stage IV and Q3gc showed improvement over the radar-only QPEs; while stage IV exhibited the lower errors, the performance of Q3gc was remarkable considering the estimates were automatically generated in near–real tim...