Radar-based high-resolution ensemble precipitation analyses over the French Alps

Abstract. Reliable estimation of precipitation fields at high resolution is a key issue for snow cover modelling in mountainous areas, where the density of precipitation networks is far too low to capture the complex variability of these fields with topography. Adequate quantification of the remaining uncertainty in precipitation estimates is also necessary for further assimilation of complementary snow observations in snow models. Radar observations provide spatialised estimates of precipitation with high spatial and temporal resolution and are often combined with rain gauge observations to improve the accuracy of the estimate. However, radar measurements suffer from significant shortcomings in mountainous areas (in particular, unrealistic spatial patterns due to ground clutter, leading to local systematic biases). Precipitation fields simulated by high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) models provide an alternative estimate but suffer from widespread systematic biases and positioning errors. Even though these uncertainties can be partially described by ensemble NWP systems and systematic errors can be reduced by statistical post-processing, NWP precipitation estimates are still not reliable enough for the requirements of high-resolution snow cover modelling. In this study, better precipitation estimates are obtained through a specific analysis based on a combination of all these available products. First, a pre-processing step is proposed to mitigate the main deficiencies of precipitation estimates by radar and gauges, focusing on reducing unrealistic spatial patterns. This method also provides a spatialised estimate of the associated error in mountainous areas, based on a climatological analysis of both radar and NWP-estimated precipitation. Three ensemble daily precipitation analysis methods are then proposed, first using only the modified precipitation estimates and associated errors, then combining them with ensemble NWP simulations based on the particle filter and ensemble Kalman filter data assimilation algorithms. The performance of the different precipitation analysis methods is evaluated at a local scale using independent ski-resort precipitation observations. The evaluation of the pre-processing step shows its ability to remove the main spatial artefacts coming from the radar measurements and to improve the precipitation estimates at the local scale. The local-scale evaluations of the ensemble analyses do not demonstrate an additional benefit of ensemble NWP forecasts, but their contrasted spatial patterns are challenging to evaluate with the available data.