Application of the principal characteristics extraction technique to consensus analysis of weather radar rainfall estimates

A principal characteristics extraction technique is proposed for consensus analysis, combining three a priori quantitative precipitation estimates obtained from weather radar reflectivity factors through three different models. The common features of the rainfall distributions, obtained with these models, are extracted and then calibrated with measurements from automatic precipitation gauges to gain a precipitation intensity estimate. Comparison of the estimate with the independent measurements from the rain-gauges shows that the result is statistically better than all three a priori estimates for the 30 cases studied.