Journal of Agricultural Big Data ›› 2019, Vol. 1 ›› Issue (1): 78-87.doi: 10.19788/j.issn.2096-6369.190108

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Accurate Precipitation Nowcasting with Meteorological Big Data: Machine Learning Method and Application

Zhang Chenyang1,2,3(),Yang Xuebing1,3,Zhang Wensheng1,2,3,*()   

  1. 1. Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
    3. Joint Laboratory of Meteorological Big Data and Machine Learning, Beijing 100190
  • Received:2018-08-28 Online:2019-03-26 Published:2019-04-04
  • Contact: Zhang Wensheng E-mail:zhangchenyang2016@ia.ac.cn;zhang@ia.ac.cn

Abstract:

Accurate precipitation nowcasting is essential for agricultural production, hydrological monitoring, flood mitigation, large organizations, and electrical systems. Because of the high uncertainty of weather systems, the performance of precipitation estimation by conventional meteorological methods based on physical models and statistical analysis is unsatisfactory. Determining how to improve the accuracy of precipitation estimation and forecasting in high resolution is challenging. This study proposes the method of terrain-based weighted random forests (TWRF) for radar-based quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE). This method can be regarded as a generalization of random forests via consideration of variations in the vertical profile of reflectivity (VPR) and orographic enhancement of precipitation for complex terrains. The performance was tested within the 45~100 km range of the Z9571 radar in Hangzhou, China during rainfall events in June and July, 2014. The experimental results showed that TWRF is better than conventional methods and random forests, and further indicate that utilization of the entire VPR and terrain-based modeling are effective for radar QPE.

Key words: meteorological big data, quantitative precipitation estimation, random forests, machine learning, weather radar

CLC Number: 

  • S-1