Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 132 (2015) 33–36

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Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics

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Short Communication

Review and testing analysis of Moupfouma rain rate model for

Southern India
Chandrika P.a,n, Vijaya Bhaskara Rao S.a, Kirankumar N.V.P.b, Narayana Rao T.c
a
Department of Physics, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati 517502, India
b
Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Trivandrum 695022, India
c
National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Gadanki 517112, India

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Suitability of the analytical model by Moupfouma in modeling the one-minute rain rate distributions at
Received 1 April 2015 tropical stations of Thiruvananthapuram and Gadanki is studied. The Climatic dependent parameters of
Received in revised form the model governing the slope of the one-minute rain rate distributions are acclimatized and validated.
17 June 2015
The paper also presents rain rate distributions for Thiruvananthapuram and Gadanki. Performance of the
Accepted 18 June 2015
model with newly refined climatic dependent parameters is assessed. The Moupfouma model is ob-
Available online 24 June 2015
served to model the one minute rain rate distributions with a maximum percentage relative error of 14%
Keywords: at 0.001% of time, and with approximately zero relative error at 0.01% of time in an average year. The
Rain rate distribution modeling climatic dependent parameters governing the slope of one-minute rain rate distributions are proposed
Moupfouma model
for Southern India.
Refined climatic parameters
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction rate database mainly from meteorological stations is with longer

Rain attenuation, signal degradation due to absorption and
scattering of microwave energy by rain drops, is the primary cause
of concern for satellite links operating at and above 10 GHz. Sa-
tellite communications are on the verge of transition to higher
frequencies above Ku band due to increasing demand for band-
width requirements owing to developments in the complex mul-
timedia applications. The advent of higher frequencies into a sa-
tellite era ushered the pragmatic necessity for second order sta-
tistics into system design paradigm (Panagopoulos et al., 2009).
Second order statistics of fade slope, fade duration, and interfade
duration can be estimated from time series of attenuation only.
The attenuation time series synthesizers developed by Lacoste
et al. (2005) employ the first order rain rate and rain attenuation
statistics as the primary inputs. First order statistics of rain rate
and rain attenuation determine the link margins for the services.
The one-minute rain rate statistics provide an insight into the
propagation characteristics and are a significant contribution to
attenuation modeling (ITU-R P.837-6, 2012). One-minute rain rate
database is scarce owing to the purposeful recordings for micro-
wave communication studies at few locations only. The large rain
integration times thus necessitating suitable models for conver-
sion to one-minute rain rate distributions. Analytical model to date
proposed by Moupfouma and Martin (1993) is illustrated as an
appropriate and viable model for tropics (Ong and Zhu, 1997;
Chebil and Rahman, 1999; Alwarfalli, 2005; Ojo et al., 2009;
Mandeep, 2011; Ojo and Omotosho, 2013).
2. Moupfouma model
Moupfouma and Martin (1993) (hereafter simply referred to as
Moupfouma model) proposed an analytical model that models the
rain rate cumulative distribution with a lognormal behavior at low
precipitation rates and as a gamma distribution at high rain rates
using the one-minute rainfall rate at 0.01% of the time. The pre-
eminence of the model lies in the devised functional form of the
slope of the distribution including the climatic zone complexities
of tropics and temperate regions. They recommended improve-
ment in parameters λ and γ governing the slope of the cumulative
distribution for tropical regions using experimental observations.
The rain rate cumulative distribution function is given as

n ⎛ R 0.01 + 1 ⎞b u R − r − log ⎡104⎤

Corresponding author. P (R ≥ r ) = 100 ⎜ ⎟ e ( 0.01 ) e⎣ ⎦,
E-mail addresses: chandrika.panigrahi@gmail.com (P. Chandrika), ⎝ r+1 ⎠ (1)
drsvbr.acas@gmail.com (S. Vijaya Bhaskara Rao),
kirannvp@gmail.com (N.V.P. Kirankumar), tnrao@narl.gov.in (T. Narayana Rao). where r (mm/hr) is the observed rain rate, R0.01 (mm/hr) is the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2015.06.010
1364-6826/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
34 P. Chandrika et al. / Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 132 (2015) 33–36
one-minute integration time rain rate exceeded for P¼ 0.01% of
time, b accounts for the shape, and u governs the slope of the
cumulative distribution. Parameters b, and u (for tropics) are ex-
pressed as
⎛ r ⎞ ⎛ r ⎞
b=⎜ − 1⎟ log e ⎜1 + ⎟,
⎝ RP ⎠ ⎝ RP ⎠
log e [P (R P )] ⎛ ⎛ r ⎞γ ⎞
u=− exp ⎜⎜−λ ⎜ ⎟ ⎟⎟,
RP ⎝ ⎝ RP ⎠ ⎠
where RP is the rainfall rate exceeded for the probability P, and P(RP)
is the probability that rain rate exceeded RP, λ and γ are climatic
dependent parameters.
Moupfouma using the data from Ile-Ife (Nigeria), PK-45 in
Congo-Brazzaville, Hong-Kong, Ipoh (Malaysia), Ho chi Minh City
(Vietnam), Miami U.S.A., Brasilia (Brazil) and Darwin derived the
climatic dependent parameters for the tropics (λ ¼1.066 and
γ ¼0.214). Ong and Zhu (1997) refined the climatic parameters for
Singapore region. Chebil and Rahman (1999) presented λ and γ
using experimental cumulative distributions at Malaysia, Singa-
pore, and Indonesia by considering the mean annual rainfall ac-
cumulation as the deciding criteria. Ojo et al. (2009) redefined the
climatic parameters of the Moupfouma model to suit Nigeria. In
the light of these reported results, Moupfouma model climatic
dependent parameters need refinement to suit Indian region.
3. Database
The database for the present work is from impact type disd-
rometers (RD-80 model by Distromet Ltd., Switzer-land) located at
a tropical coastal station, Thiruvananthapuram (8.5°N, 76.9°E) and
an Inland tropical station, Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E). One-minute
rain rates estimated from the disdrometer during the period
2007–2011 and 2013 constitute the database for the present study.
The rainfall accumulation measured by the disdrometer is in good
agreement with that of the co-located tipping bucket rain gauge
measurements. Intercomparison and performance of the disd-
rometers located at these sites were discussed by Kirankumar and
Kunhikrishnan (2013) and Rao et al. (2009).
4. Results
The cumulative distribution of the one-minute rain rates is
obtained for each year and average of six years using Thir-
uvananthapuram disdrometric data. Using the Eqs. (1) and (2),
parameter u is determined. Nonlinear least squares fitting using
Levenberg–Marquardt Algorithm is employed to fit the calculated
u values with Eq. (3) to determine λ and γ values. The climatic
dependent parameters λ and γ derived for each year and also the
average are presented in Table 1. It can be observed that γ is
sometimes negative owing to the behavior of the one-minute
distribution being narrower at highest probabilities and broader at
lower probabilities. The scatter plot of the u(r) versus r of the
averaged year distribution and the corresponding fit is shown in
Table 1
Moupfouma climatic parameters for Thiruvananthapuram.
2007 2008 2009
R0.01 mm/hr 78.5 76.0 79.5
λ 0.6961 0.7641 0.6525
γ  0.05077  0.05129  0.12010
(2)
(3)
Fig. 1. Scatter plot of the u(r) and rain rate (r) of the averaged year distribution and
the corresponding fit of the proposed climatic dependent parameters.
Fig. 1. The climatic dependent parameters λ and γ obtained
through the fit are λ ¼ 0.7983 and γ ¼0.02129. The Pearson's cor-
relation coefficient r2 of the fit obtained is 0.9834 for 308 degrees
of freedom with a root mean square error of 0.0008.
The yearly and averaged one-minute distributions are observed
to be best modeled with climatic dependent coefficients derived
from the averaged year distribution. Typical plot of the averaged
years one-minute rain rate distribution and Moupfouma modeled-
distribution with newly refined λ and γ are shown in Fig. 2. It can
be observed that Moupfouma model range of predictability is
0.001% rP% o1%. Percentage relative errors of the modeled dis-
tributions are presented as a performance criterion for the
Moupfouma model. Percentage relative error is calculated using
the expression (Chun and Mandeep, 2013)
ε rel % =
(R predicted − Rmeasured ) × 100
R measured (4)
Percentage relative errors for each year and average year dis-
tributions modeled using λ ¼0.7983 and γ ¼ 0.02129 are presented
in Table 2. The positive percentage relative error can be considered
as the overestimation and negative as underestimation by the
model.
It can be observed that the modeled distribution is replicating
the observed distribution with relative errors of 710% at P ¼0.1%
and 715% at P ¼0.001%. The maximum percentage relative error
at P ¼0.01% is  1.26%. It is clearly demonstrated that Moupfouma
model with newly refined λ and γ better replicates the observed
distribution. Consequently, λ ¼0.7983 and γ ¼0.02129 are the
newly proposed climatic dependent parameters for the Thir-
uvananthapuram region.
2010 2011 2013 Average
53.5 71.5 83.5 76.0
0.8981 0.6173 0.8735 0.7983
0.09797  0.09730 0.11380 0.02129
 P. Chandrika et al. / Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 132 (2015) 33–36 35

Table 3
Percentage relative error for one min. Moupfouma modeling for Gadanki with
λ¼ 0.7983 and γ ¼ 0.02129.

P% 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 Average

0.1 27.91 51.72 63.33 20.75 12.96 43.33 35.00

0.01 0.74 0.93 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.00 0.00
0.001 11.17 5.88  0.81 11.38 7.92  5.10 2.57

modeled are depicted in Fig. 3. It can be observed that the

Fig. 2. Rain rate distribution of Thiruvananthapuram.
Table 2
Percentage relative error for one min. Moupfouma modeling Thiruvananthapuram.
Moupfouma distribution is replicating the observations well in the
range of P ¼0.02–0.001%, whereas it is majorly overestimating in
the range of P ¼0.9–0.02%. This overestimation can be attributed to
the fact that Gadanki is an Inland station wherein observed rain
rate distribution is narrower up to PZ 0.04% from P ¼1%, and it
becomes broader in the range 0.001% rP% o 0.04%. The relative
error percentages of modeled in replicating the observed are cal-
culated and presented in Table 3.
The Moupfouma model is observed to overestimate the dis-
tribution by a rate of 1% at P¼ 0.01%. However, at P ¼0.001% the
observed rate of overestimation is 11% and underestimation is 5%.
It can be observed that the error rate is 60% at P¼ 0.1%.
From the measured rain rate distributions, it is observed that
R0.01 of an average year is 75.5 mm/hr at Thiruvananthapuram and
is 67 mm/hr at Gadanki. The rain rate exceeded at P¼ 0.001% time
in an average year, R0.001 is 110 mm/hr at Thiruvananthapuram and
is 98 mm/hr at Gadanki.

P% 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 Average

5. Conclusions
0.1  1.54 10.71 3.17 5.00  9.37  1.45 3.39
0.01  0.64 0.00  1.26 0.00  0.71 0.00 0.00 Moupfouma model climatic dependent parameters governing
0.001 10.70 3.51 14.71  1.85 9.33  10.60 4.57
the slope of one-minute rain rate distribution are acclimatized and
are observed to be very much different from that proposed for
other tropical countries. Moupfouma model was also observed to
follow the observed yearly rain rate distributions with a good level
of confidence, making it a reliable model for the regions without
long-term measurements. Moupfouma model with the newly
proposed parameters is observed to model well the one-minute
rain rate distribution at Gadanki, an Inland station, with obvious
differences in the highest percentage of time in an averaged year.
Thus, we propose the climatic dependent parameters λ ¼ 0.7983
and γ ¼0.02129 that govern the slope of the distribution within the
range of 0.001%rP% o0.8%. At Gadanki, the Moupfouma model
reliability is more in the range of 0.001% rP% o0.04%. This work
proposes and validates the Moupfouma model climatic dependent
parameters vital for one-minute rain rate distribution estimation.
Potential employment of these results is in estimating the pro-
pagation losses due to rain using the attenuation prediction
models for Ka band and also indirectly in rain fade time series
synthesizers.

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