Normalized radar reflectivity factor data 2015-2019 from Ponte Nova weather radar (São Paulo – Brazil)

This dataset is from a dual-polarization S-band (SPOL) Doppler weather radar from the Department of Water and Electric Energy, operated by the Hydraulic Technology Center Foundation, installed at Ponta Nova, State of São Paulo, Brazil . The weather radar scans are Plan Position Indicators (PPIs) of horizontal reflectivity at 0.5o of elevation angle. The images are squares of approximately 140 km² with 4-km horizontal resolution (each image has 40 x 40 pixels). The dataset includes 87,500 scans from March 2015 to December 2019 with a time interval of 15 minutes. We scaled the original data from 0 to 60 dBZ into the [0, 1] interval, dividing by 60. Each PPI has been automatically quality controlled to avoid ground clutter and anomalous propagations by means of the coincident polarimetric measurements of this radar. In the following, a summary of this data is provided: Image content: PPI of horizontal reflectivity at 0.5° of elevation Image size and resolution: ~140 km² of area, 4-km horizontal resolution (40 x 40 pixels) Format: NumPy array .npy (Python) Location: latitude 23°36'S, longitude 45°58'20''W Period: March 2015 to December 2019 (complete time series) Time interval: 15 minutes (87,500 images) Range of values: normalized to the interval [0,1] A number of meteorological studies about severe weather can be developed with this dataset, such as deep learning studies for precipitation nowcasting.