Nowcasting precipitation, clouds, and surface state in winter

Freezing of rainwater on a surface is often caused by nocturnal clearing after precipitation, which goes along with radiative cooling. Forecasting cloudiness, and especially the risk of clearing, on a scale of 1 to 3 h is of interest in the domains of road weather, agriculture, or water management. Cloud amount and the difference between air and surface temperature are important parameters of the radiation balance. In this contribution, we show the relationship between them, proved at several stations all over Switzerland. We found a correlation coefficient of 0.88 and improved it considering other meteorological parameters like wind speed. We conclude that temperature difference is a signature for nocturnal cloudiness. We investigated nocturnal cloudiness for a case from winter 2001/02 in northern Switzerland. An ultra-dense combination of two networks with 70 stations in total is operated, measuring air and surface temperature, wind and other parameters. With the aid of our equations, these measurements where converted into cloud maps, including also precipitation seen by radar. We identified a frontal precipitation area, postfrontal clearing, freezing, and the first clouds of a following frontal passage. All these findings will contribute to a better observation and predictability of surface state and other risks connected with radiative cooling.