Abstract: QuickBeam is a meteorological radar simulation package. It is capable of simulating vertical radar reflectivity profiles at any common microwave frequency, from either the top-down (i.e. satellite-based radars such as CloudSat) or the bottomup. The user provides information about the state of the atmosphere and the water species contained therein, and the simulator produces profiles of effective ... radar reflectivity factor that emulate what a physical radar system would observe. The simulator currently includes five preset distributions of hydrometeors from which the user can choose: modified gamma, exponential, power law, monodisperse, and lognormal. The software accounts for attenuation of the radar beam by both atmospheric gases and hydrometeors.

[Summary provided by Colorado State University Department of Atmospheric Science.]