PAR004 Optical disdrometer data at Westmaas

<strong>Description:</strong> In-situ measurements of raindrop size distributions, fall velocities, drop number concentrations and surface rain rates recorded by an OTT Parsivel2 disdrometer named "PAR004" in Westmaas, The Netherlands. Westmaas is a village in the Dutch province of South Holland located approximately 15 km south of the city centre of Rotterdam, south of the old Meuse. The same site also features a micro-rain radar "MRR003_Westmaas" (since June 2022) and a Davis weather station "Davis003_Westmaas" (since May 2023). All sensors are placed on top of an air quality monitoring container belonging to TNO, at a height of approx. 4 meters. The container is located approximately 1.5 km to the West of the village of Westmaas, in a predominantly flat and rural area.<br><strong>Format:</strong> 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.<br><strong>Relevance:</strong> 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.