Legacy Base Reflectivity - Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD)

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Legacy Base Reflectivity

Short Description

A 2D mosaic of quality controlled base reflectivity observations from the lowest tilts of all radars.

Subproducts

None

Primary Users

NWS: WFO, CWSU, RFC, AWC, SPC, WPC

Input Sources

WSR-88D Radars

Resolution

Spatial Resolution: 0.01^o Latitude (~1.11 km) x 0.01^o Longitude (~1.01 km at 25^oN and 0.73 km at 49^oN)

Temporal Resolution: 2 minutes

Product Creation

The product is generated via a 2D mosaicking of one tilt (the lowest) of base reflectivity from all radars.

Technical Details

Latest Update: MRMS Version 10

References

None

Strengths

Like all MRMS products, the use of multiple radars is more robust than single-site radar alone. It provides faster updates and helps the forecaster integrate data from multiple radars. It also compensates for cone-of-silence, beam broadening at far ranges, and terrain blockage.

Limitations

Bright band contamination is not removed.

Spatial resolution of 1 km x 1 km is not as good as super-resolution data from nearby single-site radar.

Quality Control

Quality controlled to remove non-meteorological echoes.

Applications

Provides a “best guess” of precipitation intensity near the ground.

Enhances low-level storm interrogation and triage for storms covering large regional extents (e.g., MCS).

Example Images

Fig. 1: Legacy Base Reflectivity at 1626 UTC on 15 August 2014.