This chapter focuses on applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) slant path delay data (SPD) to obtain signals from thunderstorms or rainbands. Current operational numerical weather prediction systems (NWPs) use water vapor distributions derived by GNSS technology as vital information for predicting convective rainfall. Mostly, zenith total delay or integrated water vapor data are used at horizontal scales of several tens of kilometers for this purpose. Beyond such operational use, SPD can be used to obtain information on storms (cumulonimbus) at horizontal scales of less than 10 km. For instance, found that SPD represents very small-scale phenomena of less than 10 km and can be used to estimate water vapor distribution around a thunderstorm with a strong tornado, and succeeded in improving the forecast skill of a rainband at 10 km scale. This chapter reviews SPD, which is invaluable for predicting thunderstorms and/or rainbands.
Part of the book: Multifunctional Operation and Application of GPS