High-resolution data products for precipitation monitoring from the WegenerNet 3D Open-Air Laboratory for Climate Change Research

The WegenerNet 3D Open-Air Laboratory for Climate Change Research, located in southeastern Austria in an area of about 22 km x 16 km around the city of Feldbach (46.93°N, 15.90°E), provides a unique setup for studying extreme hydrometeorological events such as heavy precipitation, hailstorms, and drought periods. Its 3D upper air instrumentation consists of a polarimetric X-band Doppler weather radar, a microwave radiometer for vertical profiling of temperature, humidity, and cloud liquid water, an infrared cloud structure radiometer, and a water-vapor-mapping GNSS station network. This enables comprehensive upper-air monitoring of precipitation events with high spatial- and temporal resolution in near real-time. These 3D sensors complement the high-density WegenerNet hydrometeorological ground station network, which covers the area by 156 stations measuring precipitation, temperature, humidity, and (at selected locations) wind and soil parameters. This highly synergistic measurement setup enables robust internal cross-evaluation, calibration and quality control for obtaining reliable observations and derived WegenerNet data products. The 3D instrumentation is operational since mid-2021, providing a consistent and growing data record of nearly three years so far.

We present the first release of upper air data cube products derived from the WegenerNet 3D Open-Air Laboratory, aimed at studying (heavy) precipitation events. This includes radar-derived precipitation and hydrometeor classification with 500 m spatial resolution and 2.5 min time resolution at multiple altitude levels, cloud coverage and base height maps with 10 min resolution, vertical profiles of temperature and humidity, atmospheric stability indices with 10 min resolution, and GNSS- and radiometer-derived tropospheric path delays as well as precipitable water vapor with 2.5 min to 10 min resolution. In addition to these Level 2 data products, quality-controlled Level 1 observational data, such as radar reflectivities and differential phase measurements, GNSS tropospheric delays and gradients, and infrared and microwave brightness temperatures are also made available to the scientific community. These data products, and accompanying metadata, are available in the form of user-friendly 3D data cubes accessible through the WegenerNet Data Portal.