A prototype precipitation retrieval algorithm over land using passive microwave observations stratified by surface condition and precipitation vertical structure

A prototype precipitation retrieval algorithm over land has been developed by utilizing 4 year National Mosaic and Multi‐Sensor Quantitative Precipitation Estimation and Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder coincident data sets. One of the unique features of this algorithm is using the ancillary parameters (i.e., surface type, surface temperature, land elevation, and ice layer thickness) to stratify the single database into many smaller but more homogeneous databases, in which both the surface condition and precipitation vertical structure are similar. It is found that the probability of detection (POD) increases about 8% and 12% by using stratified databases for rainfall and snowfall detection, respectively. In addition, by considering the relative humidity at lower troposphere and the vertical velocity at 700 hPa in the precipitation detection process, the POD for snowfall detection is further increased by 20.4% from 56.0% to 76.4%. The better result is evident in both ends of the retrieved rain rate when the stratified databases are used, especially when the rain rate is greater than 30 mm/h. Similarly, the retrieved snowfall rate using stratified databases also outperforms that using single database. The correlation between retrieved and observed rain rates from stratified databases is 0.63, while it is 0.42 using the single database. The root‐mean‐square error is reduced by 50.3% from 2.07 to 0.98 by using stratified databases. The retrieved snow rates from stratified database are also better correlated with observations and possess smaller root‐mean‐square error. Additionally, the precipitation overestimation from the single database over the western United States is largely mitigated when the stratified databases are utilized. It is further demonstrated that over the majority of the stratified databases, the relationship between precipitation rate and brightness temperature is much closer to that from the corresponding category in the validation databases, rather than that from the single database. Therefore, overall superior performance using the stratified databases for both the precipitation detection and retrieval is achieved. Key Points Single database is stratified into smaller and more homogeneous databases Results from stratified databases greatly outperform that from single database Including relative humidity and vertical velocity is beneficial for snow detection