Dfw Urban Radar Network Observations Of Floods, Tornadoes And Hail Storms

The CASA Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) urban remote sensing network consists of a high resolution X-band radar network and a National Weather Service S-band radar system (i.e., KFWS radar). Based primarily on these radars, an end-to-end warning system has been developed that includes sensors, software architecture, products, data dissemination and visualization, and user decision making. This paper presents a technical summary of the DFW radar network for urban weather disaster detection and mitigation, from the perspective of tracking and warning of hails, tornadoes, and floods. In particular, the architecture and associated algorithms of various product systems are detailed, including the hail detection system, the multiple Doppler wind velocity retrieval system, and the high-resolution quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) system. Sample products during the real-time operations are provided, and the systems' performance is demonstrated through cross-validation with ground observations and weather reports.