{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,10]],"date-time":"2026-01-10T02:19:46Z","timestamp":1768011586566,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,8]],"date-time":"2022-03-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1646697600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric System Research","award":["DE-SC0021345"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DE-SC0021345"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Vertically pointing radars (VPRs) operating at millimeter wavelengths measure the power return from raindrops enabling precipitation retrievals as a function of height. However, as the rain rate increases, there are combinations of rain rate and rain path length that produce sufficient attenuation to prevent the radar from detecting raindrops all the way through rain shafts. This study explores the question: Which rain rate and path length combinations completely extinguish radar return signals for VPRs operating between 3 and 200 GHz? An important step in these simulations is converting attenuated radar reflectivity factor into radar received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in order to determine the range where the SNR drops below the receiver detection threshold. Configuring the simulations to mimic a U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Mission (ARM) W-band (95 GHz) radar deployed in Brazil, the simulation results indicate that a W-band radar could observe raindrops above 3.5 km only when the rain rate was less than approximately 4 mm h\u22121. The deployed W-band radar measurements confirm the simulation results with maximum observed heights ranging between 3 and 4.5 km when a surface disdrometer measured 4 mm h\u22121 rain rate (based on 25-to-75 percentiles from over 25,000 W-band radar profiles). In summary, this study contributes to our understanding of how rain and atmospheric gas attenuation impacts the performance of millimeter-wave VPRs and will help with the design and configuration of multi-frequency VPRs deployed in future field campaigns.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs14061305","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,9]],"date-time":"2022-03-09T01:50:53Z","timestamp":1646790653000},"page":"1305","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["How Much Attenuation Extinguishes mm-Wave Vertically Pointing Radar Return Signals?"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9394-8850","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Christopher R.","family":"Williams","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1055","DOI":"10.1029\/95RS00640","article-title":"Tropical precipitation studies using a 915-MHz wind profiler","volume":"30","author":"Ecklund","year":"1995","journal-title":"Radio Sci."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"309","DOI":"10.1175\/1520-0426(1999)016<0309:AGPFPC>2.0.CO;2","article-title":"A 3-GHz Profiler for Precipitating Cloud Studies","volume":"16","author":"Ecklund","year":"1999","journal-title":"J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1608","DOI":"10.1175\/BAMS-88-10-1608","article-title":"Millimeter-wavelength radars: New frontier in atmospheric cloud and precipitation research","volume":"88","author":"Kollias","year":"2007","journal-title":"Bull. Amer. Meteor. 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