Research Progress of the Unconventional Observing Technology and the Data Used in the Study of Rainstorm in China

To improve the forecast accuracy and precision, the study of Rainstorm Prediction is now from a large scale background to small scale characteristics, from macro structure to micro changes gradually. In order to obtain a higher spatial and temporal resolution, a higher precision, and fuller elements’ observation, in recent years more and more new detection systems have been gradually used in the rainstorm field experiments, which mainly depend on the existing conventional observation network. In this review, the progress of the unconventional data is stated, such as the water vapor observing by the ground-based GNSS network, the temperature and humidity observing by the microwave radiometer, wind observing by WPR, the cloud particles by dual polarization radar observations, and the millimeter wave radar observations of clouds, used in rainfall now-casting, rainstorm mechanism analysis, and the mesoscale numerical prediction of heavy rain in China. The related new remote sensing detection technology in recent years and its promotion to the storm field scientific experiments are reviewed. The problems including the quality control and accuracy description standard of the unconventional observation, the products development, the multi-source data integrated application and their thorough study need to be resolved in the near future.