Development of a hail-detection-product

From literature five methods for the detection of summer hail have been sel ected. These five different methods have been tested on severe weather even ts in the Netherlands that occurred during the summer of 1999. The general trends in the scoring parameters of the detection methods as a function of the warning threshold are rather similar, but there are substantial quantit ative differences. Using a simple model, the effects of missing ground trut h data on the scoring parameters of the detection methods has been describe d qualitatively. It is concluded that, of all hail detection methods consid ered, the method of Waldvogel performs best and is suited best for display of the "probability of hail". (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.