An evaluation of extrapolation techniques for the short‐term prediction of rain amounts

Abstract

Abstract Twenty‐seven radar cells from the Tropical Atlantic observed during GATE were followed and measurements of their fluxes and areas for initial time increments T0 were fitted to various extrapolation schemes. The extrapolation procedure that gave the smallest error inforecasting the changes influx and area, was found to be the linear one and the optimum increment T0 was about 30 min. However, even though these techniques have the advantage of establishing a trend in the behaviour of the flux and area with time, a comparison of the forecast errors from the linear extrapolation scheme with those from the “status quo” (persistence) assumption shows little if any improvement. A technique including both cell motion and internal changes influx and area of the rain cells was developed to evaluate the accuracy of rain accumulation forecasts. It was found that the errors generated by the “status quo” assumption were of the order of 77% for a 2‐h forecast with little improvement by allowing for the extrapolation of area and flux.