A CONVECTIVE RAINFALL ESTIMATE TECHNIQUE DEVELOPED BY NSMC OF CHINA*

In order to reveal the relation between strong convective cloud characteristics and rainfall rate,over 20000 hourly raingauge data from 333 weather stations and the corresponding 4000 convective cloud infrared images of GMS-4 during the period of 1992-1994 in Henan,Hubei and Sichuan Provinces were studied.The results show that cloud top temperature,temperature gradient,the growth of cloud,overshooting top and the normalized distance between a cloud covering pixels and the cluster center have certain relations to cloud precipitation.These relations can vary with different geographical regions.Based on the study above,a convective rainfall estimation technique was developed by the scientists in National Satellite Meteorological Center of China.Its average error is 30% for daily precipitation with a correlation coefficient of 0.69.