Cross-polarized radar reflections from wet snow and ice droplets atweather radar wavelengths

The copolar radar reflection cross sections Q_HH and Q_VV from a collection of spheroid scatterers in the melting layer formed by ice precipitation prior to becoming rain have been analyzed by the authors in a recent work (IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, vol.38, p.1317-25, Sept. 1990). The model is extended to calculate the cross-polarized cross section Q_VH due to reception at an electric-field polarization orthogonal to that of transmission. The authors are specifically interested in the cross-polarized differential reflectivity L_dr=10 log₁₀(Q_VH/Q_HH)