Description: In-situ measurements of raindrop size distributions, fall velocities, drop number concentrations and surface rain rates recorded by an OTT Parsivel2 disdrometer named "PAR008" at a height of 3 meters at the Lutjewad atmospheric measurement station on the northern coast of the Netherlands, approximately 30 km northeast from the city of Groningen. The rural landscape to the south consists mainly of pasture and cropland with patches of forested land with livestock dominated by dairy cows and sheep. Set up directly behind the Wadden Sea dike, the site features a 60 meter tall sampling tower, a 10 meter platform, a laboratory building, and an aerosol laboratory container. The station monitors greenhouse gases and trace gas species, sampling aerosol number, size, and composition at different altitudes. Lutjewad is part of the European research infrastructure ICOS, providing continuous greenhouse gas concentrations. The coastal location means that the site samples relatively clean marine background air in conditions of northerly winds and more polluted air masses during conditions of south-easterly and south-westerly winds.
Format: Each NetCDF file covers a full month of observations. The temporal resolution is 1 minute. Data are provided "as is", without any post-processing. The NetCDF files contain all relevant information about all the variables, attributes and units. The global attributes of the NetCDF files contain important information about the type of sensor, logging software, project contributors and history of the dataset. If a monthly file is missing, no data are available for this month.
Relevance: Optical disdrometer data are useful for studying the type, dynamics and microphysics of precipitation from the perspective of a fixed observer on the ground. The data can be used to help calibrate weather radars, improve quantitative precipitation estimates, calculate the absorption/attenuation/propagation of electromagnetic signals through the atmosphere, and quantify important physical quantities such as liquid water content, rain amount, intensity and kinetic energy.
Note: On April 7, 2022, PAR008 was blown over by the wind during a big storm. The concrete ballast at the base of the 3 meter pole was not heavy enough to sustain the high winds and the sensor fell to the ground and got damaged in the process. On June 3, 2022, another Parsivel disdrometer named "PAR009_Lutjewad" was installed on the same site to replace the broken sensor.
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