Quality and Assimilation of Radar Data for NWP - a Review

The COST-717 Action entitled ``Use of Radar Observations in Hydrological and NWP models'' offers a framework in which European radar and NWP scientists, along with those from the hydrological community, can work together to realise this potential. COST-717 is divided into 3 working groups. The third is entitled ``Using Radar Information for Assimilation into Atmospheric Models''.

This review by members of Working Group 3 seeks to inform the radar and NWP communities about each other's disciplines and provide an accessible introduction to the literature for those working at the intersection of these fields. In the second half of the paper we review the development of methods for assimilating radar data into NWP models, but we begin with the quality control which must accompany those methods in any successful application.