Abstract
Mutimodality appears in the modelling of rainfall drop size distributions (DSDs), and the understanding of the distribution in general is important as it helps in the predicting and mitigation of attenuation due to rain of satellite signals in frequencies above 10 GHz. This work looks at the occurrence of multimodality in the rainfall DSDs in southern England, with data captured at the Chilbolton Observatory for a seven year period (2003 to 2009). The investigation looks at the variation in the number of modes against different rain rates and seasons. It shows that multimodality is a relatively common occurrence, and hence there is a need to model this phenomenon when attempting to predict rain attenuation of satellite signals.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Marshall, J.S., McK, P.W.: The distribution of raindrops with size. J. Meteorol. 5, 165–166 (1948)
Levine, L. M.: The distribution function of cloud and rain drops by sizes, Doklady Akad. Nauk., SSSR 94, No. 6, 1045–1048, 1954. (Translated by Assoc. Tech. Services Inc., East Orange, NJ) cited in Mueller, Eugene Albert (1966), Radar Cross Sections from Drop Size Spectra, Ph.D. thesis in Electrical Engineering, Graduate College of the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, United States
Markowitz, A.H.: Raindrop size distribution expressions. J. Appl. Meteorol. 15(9), 1029–1031 (1976)
Feingold, G., Levin, Z.: The lognormal fit to raindrop spectra from frontal convective clouds in Israel. J. Appl. Meteorol. 25(10), 1346–1363 (1986)
Owolawi, P.: Raindrop size distribution model for the prediction of rain attenuation in Durban. Prog. Electromagnet. Res. 7(6), 516–523 (2011)
Ulbrich, C.W., Atlas, D.: Assessment of the contribution of differential polarization to improved rainfall measurements. Radio Sci. J. 19(1), 49–57 (1984)
Ekerete, K’.E., Hunt, F.H., Agnew, J. L., Otung, I. E.: Experimental study and modelling of rain drop size distribution in southern England, IET Colloquium on Antennas, Wireless and Electromagnetics, May 27th 2014. doi:10.1049/ic.2014.0016
Steiner, M., Waldvogel, A.: Peaks in raindrop size distributions. J. Atmos. Sci. 44, 3127–3133 (1987)
Sauvageot, H., Koffi, M.: Multimodal Raindrop Size Distribution. J. Atmos. Sci. 57, 2480–2492 (2000)
Radhakrisna, B., Narayana Rao, T.: Multipeak raindrop size distribution observed by UHF/VHF wind profilers during the passage of a mesoscale convective system. Mon. Weather Rev. 137, 976–990 (2008)
Distromet Ltd.: Disdrometer RD-80 Instruction Manual, Switzerland (2002)
Montopoli, M., Marzano, F.S., Vulpiani, G.: Analysis and synthesis of raindrop size distribution time series from disdrometer data. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 46(2), 466–478 (2008). doi:10.1109/TGRS.2007.909102
Townsend, A.J., Watson, R.J.: The linear relationship between attenuation and average rainfall rate for terrestrial links. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 59(3), 994–1002 (2011)
Islam, T., Rico-Ramirez, M.A., Thurai, M., Han, D.: Characteristics of raindrop spectra as normalized gamma distribution from a Joss-Waldgovel disdrometer. Atmos. Res. 108, 57–73 (2012)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Institute for Computer Sciences, Social informatics and Telecommunication Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ekerete, KM.E., Hunt, F.H., Otung, I.E., Jeffery, J.L. (2015). Multimodality in the Rainfall Drop Size Distribution in Southern England. In: Pillai, P., Hu, Y., Otung, I., Giambene, G. (eds) Wireless and Satellite Systems. WiSATS 2015. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 154. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25479-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25479-1_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25478-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25479-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)