Operational precipitation nowcasting system based on radar data and comparative pointwise verification results for the warm and cold seasons
The article presents the results of testing the operational precipitation nowcasting system of the Hydrometcentre of Russia during the cold season (November 2017 - March 2018) based on data of nine radars located on the European territory of Russia. These results supplement the earlier testing for the warm season (May - September 2017). Key attention is given to the pointwise forecast verification compared to the similar qua-lity assessment for the warm period. It is demonstrated that the precipitation nowcasting during the cold season is more informative as against the warm period, when evaluated using the correlation coefficient (COR), and that it is comparable in terms of the syste-matic bias (BIAS). Given that in the examined period the precipitation intensity was half the intensity observed in the previous warm season, the comparison based on categorical scores like the Pierce skill score (PSS) and the equitable threat score (ETS) has resulted in ambiguous conclusions for different intensity thresholds. Stronger effects of ground clutters and other radiolocation features on the verification results have been observed for the cold period