A weather monitoring system for the study of precipitation fields, weather, and climate in an urban area

The possibility to study the precipitation dynamics with advanced and specific tools is an important task of the research activity addressing the understanding, the modeling, and the managing of rainfall events. Over the last years, the hydrology laboratory of the Department of Civil, Environmental, Aerospace Engineering, and Materials (DICAM) at the University of Palermo, has installed several instruments for the monitoring and the study of precipitation within the urban area of Palermo (Italy). The main instrument of this system is the X-band weather radar, which allows monitoring the precipitation fields with high resolution in space and time. This instrument is supported by a rain gauge…

Sviluppo di un sistema di monitoraggio per lo studio delle dinamiche meteorologiche nell'area urbana di Palermo.'

USING A X-BAND WEATHER RADAR FOR AN URBAN AREA EARLY WARNING SYSTEM AND THE STUDY OF PRECIPITATION DYNAMICS.

The development and availability of X-band radar instruments occurred in the last years, provides the scientific community of an important tool for the study, the characterization and the operational usage of detailed precipitation information. The hydrology laboratory of the Department of Civil, Environmental, Aerospace Engineering, and Materials (DICAM) at the University of Palermo, has installed a X-band weather radar in the urban area of Palermo (Italy) along with a set of advanced auxiliary instruments that help on exploiting the precipitation information. A raingauge network of 18 tipping bucket gauges spread over the observed area is available for the calibration of precipitation map…

A local post-retrieval tool for satellite precipitation estimates

As illustrated by several literature case studies spread around di erent geographic locations, satellite precipi- tation estimates, obtained by means of consolidated algorithms, often result being considerably biased. Moreover observed bias is related to geographic location since particular features such as latitude, presence of coastal areas and climatological and weather regime, a ect performances of satellite estimates. Bias adjusted products that make use of global ground-based precipitation estimates, are available as well but still these datasets may show a relevant bias level. In this study a procedure to bias-adjust satellite precipitation estimates has been devel- oped for the loca…

Development of an early warning system to predict sewer overflow

Flash flooding in our city is still a fairly common phenomenon.Unfortunately, the development of a flash flood forecasting system in urban areas is not a simple and unambiguous procedure.While attending the PhD course in Civil and Environmental Engineering, research activity has been given to realize an urban overflowing prediction system that was best as possible suited to the drainage network of the city of Palermo. With the support of radar data and hybrid hydraulic model for drainage network has been possible to demonstrate the effectiveness of this instrument, while the reduction of residual flood risk has been supported by modern resilience measures.