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Abstract
Ground-based weather radars are designed to observe a wide area around the radar. For research interests the RHI (range height indicator, changing elevation) mode is meaningful in contrast to the operationally used PPI (plane position indicator, changing azimuth) scan method. With the RHI mode the vertical profile at a chosen distance from the radar can be extracted from the complete scan. Using this approach, typical vertical profiles of key polarimetric observables (Z, ZDR and LDR) will be obtained. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of this method will be elucidated with reference to temporal and spatial non-uniformity inherent to the data. Examples, from both stratiform and convective clouds, will be given from archived data recorded with the C-band radar POLDIRAD (radar site Oberpfaffenhofen (near Munich, Germany)).