Robustness and limitation of algorithms for attenuation correction of C-band meteorological radar

This paper addresses the problem of jointly correcting beam blocking and C-band propagation attenuation effects in weather radars by resorting to incoherent radar observables and to a clutter discrimination technique. The authors propose a strategy for data processing and discuss its effectiveness based on data gathered during a severe storm occurred in October 1992. Data analysis points out that accounting for the effects of clutter contamination and beam screening in the correction procedure greatly helps in mitigating the effects the instability of iterative techniques utilised for C-band attenuation correction. Nevertheless, in the presence of extremely intense rainfall, the correction algorithm may still. Diverge, clearly evidencing that in such cases the problem of an adequate and careful criterion to derive the specific attenuation-reflectivity conversion relationship becomes of primary importance