Analysis of the Relationship between the Cloud Water Path and Precipitation Intensity of Mature Typhoons in the Northwest Pacific Ocean

The relationship between precipitation intensity and cloud water in typhoon systems remains unclear. This study combined time- and space-synchronized precipitation and spectral data obtained by the Precipitation Radar (PR) as well as the Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) onboard the TRMM satellite, to overcome the limitations of precipitation properties and cloud parameters not being synchronized in previous studies. A merged dataset of near-surface rain rate (RR) and corresponding cloud water path (CWP) was established and used to analyze the potential correlation between cloud microphysical properties and precipitation, to deepen our understanding of the evolution of cloud to rain. In addition, 25 collocated satellite overpasses of mature typhoon cases in the Northwest Pacific Ocean from 1998 to 2012 were obtained, and the relationships between the CWP and RR of 144 515 pixels were analyzed in detail. The results show that the CWP and RR of mature typhoon systems with different precipitation types, precipitation cloud phases, and vertical depths of precipitation can be fitted by a notable sigmoid function, which may be useful for estimating CWP and parameterizing precipitation in models. Furthermore, the relationship was applied and tested with an independent sample to show that RR is a significant indicator of CWP.