Tracking, analysis, and nowcasting of cuban convective cells as seen by radar

Abstract

This work describes the implementation and validation of an objective methodology for storm cell identification and tracking, which only uses radar reflectivity data as input. This methodology was applied to the statistical characterization of Cuban convective storms. The properties of radar echoes during 13 convective days in the vicinity of Camaguey, Cuba for the 2007 rainy season are obtained, and frequency distributions of mean hour of occurrence, total duration, maximum reflectivity, area, top height, and mean velocity during each trajectory are presented and compared to similar reports in Cuba and other regions. The trajectory of each storm is extrapolated to forecast its position up to 1 h ahead. Both tracking and nowcasting are evaluated for different situations, showing the good performance of the method. © 2013 Royal Meteorological Society.