Hydrology and Earth System Sciences www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net 1027-5606 1607-7938 11 4 2007 10.5194/hess-11-1361-2007 http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/11/1361/2007/ http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/11/1361/2007/hess-11-1361-2007.html http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/11/1361/2007/hess-11-1361-2007.pdf 1361 1372 2007-06-07 Development of a window correlation matching method for improved radar rainfall estimation T. Piman st100803@ait.ac.th M. S. Babel A. Das Gupta S. Weesakul Water Engineering and Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand The present study develops a method called window correlation matching method (WCMM) to reduce collocation and timing errors in matching pairs of radar measured reflectivity, Ze, and gauge measured rainfall intensity, R, for improving the accuracy of the estimation of Ze−R relationships. This method was compared with the traditional matching method (TMM), the probability matching method (PMM) and the window probability matching method (WPMM). The calibrated relationship Ze=18.05 R1.45 obtained from 7×7 km of space window and both present and 5 min previous time of radar observation for time window (S77T5) produces the best results for radar rainfall estimates for orographic rain over the Mae Chaem Watershed in the north of Thailand. The comparison shows that the Ze−R relationship obtained from WCMM provide more accuracy in radar rainfall estimates as compared with the other three methods. The Ze−R relationships estimated using TMM and PMM provide large overestimation and underestimation, respectively, of mean areal rainfall whereas WPMM slightly underestimated the mean areal rainfall. 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