First nationwide analysis of riming using vertical observations from the operational German C-band radar network

Abstract. The 17 operational German C-band polarimetric weather radars routinely perform a vertical “birdbath” scan, which has so far primarily been used for calibration of differential moments. In this study, we transfer a retrieval algorithm for the rime fraction of snowflakes – originally developed for Ka-band cloud research radars – to the operational birdbath scan. This retrieval, which relies on the increase in detected mean Doppler velocity, serves as our benchmark. To validate the transfer of the retrieval, we apply it to a resampled birdbath dataset, constructed by downsampling cloud radar data to match the resolution of the operational birdbath scan. In addition, we present a new clutter filter and a melting layer detection algorithm for the operational birdbath scan. Finding good agreement between resampled and benchmark datasets, we apply the new retrieval to radar data recorded during the winters of 2021 to 2024. This results in a nationwide map of riming events in wintertime clouds. There is a north-south gradient in the riming distribution, which can be linked to Germany's precipitation climatology. Notably, we show that the occurrence of riming events correlates more strongly with precipitation intensity than with the total number of precipitation hours across sites. The temperature distribution associated with riming is consistently between −15 and 0 °C at all sites, except for the Feldberg site, which hints at a possible orographic effect. This study demonstrates that the operational birdbath scan of C-Band weather radars can be used for the retrieval of microphysical processes. Corresponding solutions, challenges and methods to transfer retrieval algorithms from research cloud radars to the operational weather radars are discussed.