The structure of convective rain cells at mid-latitudes

Abstract. Rain cells are structures which represent an important component of convective precipitation and a study of their properties represents a necessary step both towards improved stochastic models of small-scale precipitation and for the verification of deterministic high resolution local-area models. The case of intense convective precipitation in the tropics has been analysed in a recent study (von Hardenberg et al., 2003). Here we extend the analysis to mid-latitudes and we present results on the structure of convective rain cells observed by radar measurements in Italy. In particular we consider the average shape of precipitation cells and its dependence on radar resolution and the distributions of ellipticities.