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https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-160
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-160
03 Apr 2025
 | 03 Apr 2025
Status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal ESSD.

The Dutch real-time gauge-adjusted radar precipitation product

Aart Overeem, Hidde Leijnse, Mats Veldhuizen, and Bastiaan Anker

Abstract. The Dutch real-time gauge-adjusted radar quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) product provides 5 min accumulations every 5 min on a ∼ 1 km2 grid covering the Netherlands and the area around it (∼ 4.5×105 km2). It plays a key role in hydrological decision-support systems and as input for nowcasts in order to inform decision makers. Major changes to the production of this QPE product were implemented on 31 January 2023, and include (polarimetric) fuzzy logic clutter removal, rain-induced attenuation correction and vertical profile of reflectivity correction. Moreover, the mean-field bias rain gauge ad- justment was replaced by a spatially variable rain gauge adjustment. We evaluate the potential quality improvement resulting from these changes by comparing the last year of the old and the first year of the renewed QPE product. Clutter leading to overestimation in the old radar product is effectively removed in the renewed radar product. Evaluation against rain gauge accumulations shows a strong improvement. Average underestimation decreases by about ten percentage points to 15 % over the Netherlands. Improvements of statistics are clear for daily precipitation over a large part of the QPE product domain, but also show the potential for incorporating rain gauge accumulations outside the Netherlands. The 1 h and daily extremes over the Netherlands are also better captured by the renewed product. Improvements in daily precipitation accumulations for the renewed product are stronger in the winter period than in the summer period. Finally, it is recommended to include Belgian and German rain gauge data in the product. The Dutch real-time 5 min gauge-adjusted precipitation radar dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.21944/5c23-p429 (real-time) and https://doi.org/10.21944/e7zx-8a17 (archive) (KNMI Radar Team, 2018a, b).

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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Aart Overeem, Hidde Leijnse, Mats Veldhuizen, and Bastiaan Anker

Status: open (until 10 May 2025)

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Aart Overeem, Hidde Leijnse, Mats Veldhuizen, and Bastiaan Anker

Data sets

Precipitation - radar/gauge 5 minute real-time accumulations over the Netherlands KNMI Radar Team https://doi.org/10.21944/5c23-p429

Precipitation - radar/gauge 5 minute real-time accumulations over the Netherlands - archive KNMI Radar Team https://doi.org/10.21944/e7zx-8a17

Aart Overeem, Hidde Leijnse, Mats Veldhuizen, and Bastiaan Anker

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Short summary
The Dutch real-time gauge-adjusted radar product provides 5 min precipitation accumulations every 5 min covering the Netherlands and the area around it. It plays a key role in hydrological decision-support systems and as input for short-term weather forecasts. Major changes were implemented on 31 January 2023 and the associated quality improvement is presented. Moreover, the employed radar and rain gauge datasets and the algorithms needed to produce this real-time radar product are described.
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