FIELD CAMPAIGN FOR THE COMPARISON OF SOUSY RADAR WIND MEASUREMENTS WITH RAWINSONDE AND MODEL DATA

A field campaign was carried out from 26 October to 7 November 1992, u sing the SOUSY-VHF radar and a mobile rawinsonde system installed and operated nearby to produce vertical winds profiles. The purpose of thi s campaign was to compare the two types of wind measurements with one another and with results from forecast models. Numerical algorithms we re developed and applied to the radar data in order to eliminate rando m errors, correct for velocity aliasing, and calculate the effective z enith angle of the off-vertical beams. Differences between wind profil er data and rawinsonde or model results depend not only upon the error s of the different systems, but also on temporal and spatial variation s of the wind field. Therefore, methods for the comparison of radar an d rawinsonde data were developed which take into consideration these v ariations. The practical potential of these methods is demonstrated by comparisons of rawinsonde and radar wind profiles. The comparison of radar data and model output shows excellent agreement in the direction and in the speed of the wind at virtually all altitudes. an evaluatio n of the quality of wind profiler measurements is possible using the e stimation of variance and variability of wind components.