A Fuzzy Logic Scheme for the Detection of Bounded Weak Echo Regions

V Lakshmanan¹      Arthur Witt²

Abstract:

Supercell severe thunderstorms are often associated with Bounded Weak Echo Regions (BWERs). Consequently, the presence or absence of a BWER within a storm is important for severe weather forecasting. However, for reasons we explain in this paper, the three dimensional structure of a BWER is often not clearly defined in radar data. In this paper, we describe a fuzzy logic approach of generating membership functions and a rule base where the various uncertainties associated with a BWER's radar profile are taken into account. A fuzzy logic classifier that uses the output of these rules to classify a given region as a BWER, a marginal BWER or as a non-BWER is described. We show that the incidence of false alarms is greatly reduced when we use the fuzzy logic classifier instead of a weighted-sum thresholder and that a reliable BWER detection scheme results.