Spatial correlation coefficients of rainfall intensity inferred from statistics of rainfall intensity and rain attenuation

A statistical procedure is presented for estimating the measured rainfall intensity to derive the radio wave attenuation over a given locality on the basis of raingauge data from that locality. The computations are based on a modification of the method developed by Morita and Higuti (1978), in which the spatial structure of rainfall is modeled in terms of a spatial correlation coefficient (SSC) of rainfall attenuation. The SSC is calculated using raingauge data for each site. Sample results show that the point rainfall intensity for eight European sites are approximated by lognormal distributions for rates under 50 mm/hr. the method is intended for estimating the radio wave attenuation in earth-satellite links.