130 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 17

An Optical Disdrometer for Measuring Size and Velocity of Hydrometeors

MARTIN LÖFFLER-MANG
Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

JÜRG JOSS
Osservatorio Ticinese, Swiss Meteorological Institute, Locarno, Switzerland

(Manuscript received 15 September 1998, in final form 6 May 1999)

ABSTRACT
The characteristics of a prototype optical disdrometer are presented. Particles are detectable in the diameter
range from 0.3 to 30 mm having velocities of up to 20 m s 21 . Advantages of the new system are (i) it is easy
to handle, robust, and low cost, allowing a cluster of instruments to investigate the spatial and temporal fine-
scale structure of precipitation; (ii) it provides reliable detection of the range of small drops; and (iii) it allows
the possibility of snow measurements. Results of rain measurements are compared with data from a Joss–
Waldvogel disdrometer and a Hellmann rain gauge. Furthermore, some snow measurements are presented and
compared with results of a research spectrometer. The overall agreement is good. The repeatability of particle
size estimation was checked in the diameter range between 1.4 and 8.0 mm and yielded a standard deviation
of less than 5%. For drop velocities the standard deviation varies between 25% (0.3-mm drops) and 10% (5-mm
drops). The optical disdrometer can also serve as a present weather sensor, detecting and differentiating among
rain, snow, drizzle, graupel, hail, and the absence of precipitation.

1. Introduction
For years scientists from many fields of research have
been interested in measuring the size and velocity of
particles. A large number of drop sizing instruments are
described in literature. They can be divided into several
groups, depending on the physical principle used.
Impact techniques are the basis of the first group of
instruments. Early work with a filter method was done
by Diem (1956). A disadvantage of this method was the
large effort needed to evaluate the measurements. An-
other instrument in this group is the well-known Joss–
Waldvogel disdrometer (Joss and Waldvogel 1967). It
is widely used as a reference instrument for rain inves-
tigations.
A second group is based on imaging techniques.
Some examples of these are the optical array probe
(Knollenberg 1970), the three-dimensional holography
(Borrmann and Jaenicke 1993), the pluviospectrometer
(Frank et al. 1994) based on a video camera, the video
distrometer (Schönhuber et al. 1994) with two line-scan
cameras, and the particle spectrometer (Barthazy et al.
1998), to mention just a few.
A third group uses a large variety of scattering tech-
Corresponding author address: Martin Löffler-Mang, PMTech AG,
Am Storrenacker 1a, D-76139, Karlsruhe, Germany.
E-mail: loeffler-mang@pmtech.de
niques. On the one hand, there are single particle coun-
ters, such as the forward scattering probe (Knollenberg
1981), phase-Doppler instruments (Bachalo 1980; Dom-
nick et al. 1993), or extinction probes (Hauser et al.
1984; Grossklaus et al. 1998). On the other hand, there
are instruments that probe smaller or larger particle col-
lectives by making use of Fraunhofer diffraction (Gerber
1993; Lawson and Cormack 1995; Löffler-Mang et al.
1996; Löffler-Mang 1998) or by measuring the back-
scatter of radar waves (Sheppard 1990; Rogers et al.
1993; Löffler-Mang et al. 1999).
In this paper the characteristics of a prototype optical
disdrometer, based on single particle extinction, are pre-
sented. Particles are detectable in the diameter range
between 0.3 and 30 mm, having velocities of up to 20
m s21 . Attributes of the system we present are as fol-
lows.
1) It is easy to handle, robust, and low cost; therefore
it is possible to install networks of disdrometers, thus
making ‘‘point’’ measurements more representative
and investigating small-scale variability.
2) Small drops are reliably detected. This is of interest
for investigating scavenging and chemical effects.
Furthermore, by choosing different versions of the
optical system the measuring range of the sensor may
be modified to also estimate the size of drizzle drops
with diameters down to 0.1 mm.
3) Estimates of the size and velocity of snowflakes can

q 2000 American Meteorological Society

FEBRUARY 2000 L Ö F F L E R - M A N G A N D J O S S 131

TABLE 1. Specifications of the optical disdrometer.

Sensor head
Size d 5 225 mm, h 5 200 mm
Weight 5 kg
Laser diode wavelength 780 nm
power 3 mW
Light sheet size 30 mm 3 1 mm 3 160 mm
Measuring area 48 cm 2
Measuring range diameter 0.3–30 mm (0.1–10 mm)
velocity 0.1–20 m s21
Electronics
Size 250 mm 3 260 mm 3 150 mm
Weight 5 kg
Power supply 10–40 V DC or 100–230 V AC
Power consumption 10 W
A/D–Converter resolution 12 bit
sample rate 50 3 10 3 s21
Memory capacity (internal) 1 month of rain
Access, interface PC via RS 232

be obtained. This information is useful for ‘‘present

weather sensors’’ and for interpreting results from
weather radar systems in wintertime, especially in
alpine regions, where hydrometeors in the radar vol-
ume usually consist of snow.
Section 2 describes the instrument: general attributes,
the optical part of the sensor, the sensor housing, the
data analysis, and the accuracy achieved. In section 3
results from field operations are presented and compared
with data from other instruments. Finally, ideas for the FIG. 1. Signals of particles falling through the light sheet. (a) Small
future, instrumental development, and planned appli- and large particles, (b) raw signal from the sensor, and (c) inverted
cations are outlined in section 4. and amplified signal after thresholding for measuring purposes.

2. Measuring system
a. Attributes of the instrument
The disdrometer consists of an optical sensor within
a housing and some appropriate electronics including
solid state memory, which allows at least one month’s
recording of rain data. Attributes of the instrument are
summarized in Table 1. The following sections explain
the measuring system in more detail.
b. Optical sensor
The basis of the instrument is a commercially avail-
able sensor, producing a horizontal sheet of light (30
mm wide and 1 mm high, 160 mm long). The light sheet
is produced by a 780-nm laser diode with a power of
3 mW. In the receiver the light sheet is focused onto a
single photodiode. The transmitter and receiver are
mounted in a housing for protection (see section 2c). In
the absence of drops the receiver produces a 5-V signal
at the output of the sensor. Particles passing through the
light sheet cause a decrease of this signal by extinction
and therefore a short reduction of the voltage. The volt-
age decrease depends linearly on the fraction of the light
sheet blocked. Figure 1 (upper part) schematically
shows the signals of two particles of different size. The
amplitude of the signal deviation is a measure of particle
size, the duration of the signal allows an estimate of
particle velocity. An appropriate concept to detect the
start and the end of a signal is implemented in the soft-
ware.
Geometrical considerations show that the effective
width of the light sheet depends on the particle size. To
be completely in the light sheet, larger particles have a
smaller region in horizontal direction. Therefore, to es-
timate concentration, the effective width for each par-
ticle is taken into account.
c. Sensor housing
Two different protections have been tested. At first,
a housing (Fig. 2a) of a shape similar to a Hellmann
rain gauge was analyzed for the rain measurements.
Then, for snow measurements a tunnel-like housing was
used (Fig. 2b).
The Hellmann housing has been tested; for example,
the effects of wind were investigated in great detail by
Nespor (1998). Furthermore, the Hellmann housing has
a rather small outside dimension, producing a minimum
of disturbance for rain, though only at vertical incidence.
132 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 2. (a) Front and top views of optical disdrometer in Hellmann
rain gauge housing. (b) Side views of optical disdrometer in tunnel
housing.
In the first housing the light sheet is folded by two
mirrors to keep the instrument size small. The tunnel
housing makes it easy to assemble the sensor and to
adjust the light sheet. Finally, at first approximation the
sensitive measuring area is independent of wind speed
and direction.
d. Data analysis
The analysis of the signal (Fig. 1, middle panel) con-
sists of the following steps: removal of the DC part,
inversion, amplification, and filtering (see Fig. 1, lower
panel). Then a fast A/D conversion is done, followed
VOLUME 17
by thresholding to detect the start of particles and their
maximum value. The shadow signal duration and the
time between two particles are also recorded. The last
three quantities are stored for each particle for further
calculation of distributions (size, velocity, energy, etc.)
as well as integral values (i.e., rain rate, radar reflectiv-
ity, liquid water content). The time needed for this anal-
ysis of one particle is less than 1 ms.
The optical sensor was originally designed for ex-
tinction measurements with signal durations of more
than 2 ms. For snowflakes this duration is exceeded;
therefore, the device needs no correction. The size of a
particle is calculated from the maximum reduction of
the signal (reflecting the blocked fraction of the light
sheet). The particle is assumed to be spherical with a
diameter corresponding to the width of the maximum
blocked area. For single snowflakes, which may have
rather complicated shapes, this assumption is less well
fulfilled than for raindrops. But for the ensembles mea-
sured during 60 s or more, the stochastical variation is
reduced.
Calibration is needed to determine the characteristics
of the internal electronics of the sensor. Special care is
needed for signals of less than 2-ms duration. Note that
typical sizes and velocities of rain drops lead to signal
durations between 0.4 and 1.1 ms. Because of limited
bandwidth of the off-the-shelf electronics used, the re-
duction of the measured signal amplitude (as compared
to the theoretical amplitude) has to be compensated. For
rain and hail measurements, the device was therefore
calibrated with particles of known size, falling at ter-
minal velocity. Twenty-seven different sizes of glass
spheres, ethanol, and water drops in size ranges from
0.275 to 4.29 mm were used. Signals of particles were
measured in the laboratory after a free fall in air of a
10-m height. From each size some hundred particles
were analyzed individually, then the median voltage for
the particle size was calculated. Thus an empirical re-
lation between size and voltage was obtained. This re-
lation is used for the evaluation of raindrops and hail.
Note that the calibration also takes into account the
oblateness of larger raindrops.
The particle velocity is calculated from the signal
duration. The signal starts with the particle entering the
light sheet and ends when the particle has completely
exited the light sheet. The distance of influence of a
particle is given by the light sheet thickness of 1 mm
plus the particle diameter (see Fig. 1). The ratio of this
distance and the signal duration yields the particle ve-
locity.
Because of the possibility of coincidences of particles
in the light sheet, a correction is applied to estimate the
real number concentration (Raasch and Umhauer 1984).
For normal rain, coincidences are not a problem. But
for strong rain and for rain with a large number of drops,
coincidences may increase to a value that is not neg-
ligible but is so small as to be easily corrected. Prob-
abilities of coincidence were calculated for three ex-
FEBRUARY 2000 L Ö F F L E R - M A N G A N D J O S S
treme examples, considering drops with diameters be-
tween 0.3 and 5.5 mm. For an extremely strong strat-
iform rain (with size distribution parameter N 0 5 8000
m23 mm21 and rain rate R 5 100 mm h21 ) it is 10%,
for a most intensive ‘‘drizzle’’ (N 0 5 30 000 m23 mm21 ,
R 5 30 mm h21 ) 9%, and for an extreme convective
shower (N 0 5 1400 m23 mm21 , R 5 300 mm h21 ) it is
5%. Similar maximum values of coincidence probability
are found in snow.
e. Accuracy
A number of effects influence the accuracy of deter-
mining size and velocity. The homogeneity of the light
sheet was checked with a 1.0-mm-diameter wire. For a
mean signal of 130 mV, a variation of less than 65 mV
was found when moving the vertical wire through the
whole area of the light sheet. The noise superimposed
on the signal is on the order of 63 mV. The A/D con-
version has a resolution of 12 bits (4096 steps) for 10
V and a sample rate of 50 3 10 3 s21 . The sample rate
limits the accuracy of the estimate of signal duration;
that is, it mainly influences velocity errors.
The repeatability was checked with two different sizes
of steel balls (5.52 and 8.03 mm in diameter) and with
a small glass sphere (1.45 mm). The same particle was
thrown 100 times through the light sheet with a velocity
of approximately 1 m s21 . In a first experiment the po-
sition was always in the middle of the sheet near to the
transmitting sensor. Then, in a second experiment, the
particles were randomly passed through the whole mea-
suring area. The first experiment yielded for all three
particle sizes a standard deviation of size determination
below 3%, the second was smaller than 5%.
When using the 20 size intervals of the Joss–Wald-
vogel disdrometer to classify drops, the overall error in
estimating the diameter in the whole range of the in-
strument does not exceed 6100 mm plus 65%. For the
velocity measurements of raindrops, the errors are with-
in 25% for the smallest drops (0.3 mm) and 10% for
largest drops (5 mm).
When calculating integral values such as rain rate and
radar reflectivity, the instrumental errors are reduced by
averaging, as verified by simulations. The stochastic
variation caused by the quantization of rain drops may
exceed the instrumental errors. Its magnitude depends
on the sample size, an attribute valid for all drop sizing
instruments (Smith et al. 1993).
For these considerations misadjustment of the optics,
water or dust on sensor windows, drop sorting, or a
poorly defined measuring area caused by high horizontal
wind speed were not taken into account. These error
sources can be reduced to a negligible size by proper
installation and maintenance of the instrument.
133
3. Results and comparison with standard
instruments
a. Rain measurements
First measurements of raindrop spectra were con-
ducted from May to July 1997. The optical disdrometer
was placed 50 cm from a Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer
on the roof of a small building in the Forschungszen-
trum Karlsruhe. To facilitate comparison of two in-
struments, the results of the optical disdrometer were
calculated in time intervals of 1 min for the 20 classes
of drop size of the Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer. For
illustration a convective event on 21 May 1997 in the
early morning hours was chosen. For each instrument
the 10-min mean number density was calculated as a
function of drop diameter (Fig. 3). There is good agree-
ment between the measurements of the optical and the
Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer in the diameter range
from 0.7 to 2 mm.
The case, however, shows differences in the range of
small drops. Strong winds and/or acoustic noise may
inhibit detection of the lower end of the drop size with
the Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer (this device originally
was designed for the determination of Z–R relations).
This part of the spectrum has less influence on rain rate
and radar reflectivity, but may be important for cloud
physics aspects and washout of pollutants by rain.
For larger drops the concentration is rather low.
Therefore, the standard deviation is too large for a safe
interpretation (see error bars). Note also that the instru-
ments did not measure the identical drops.
For 1 h the time series of the rain rate, calculated
from the drop size distributions, is presented for both
disdrometers in Fig. 4. It shows a strong convective
event in the afternoon of 5 July 1997 between 1600 and
1700 CET with a duration of three-quarters of an hour,
reaching rain rates of 20 to 30 mm h21 . The quantitative
agreement between the two disdrometers is quite good,
considering the accuracy of the instruments (around
10% for the rain rate).
The intercomparison of daily rain sums, measured by
both disdrometers and a Hellmann rain gauge, are com-
pared in the histogram of Fig. 5. For 10 days of the
time span between May and July 1997 data of all three
measuring devices are available. For most of the days,
the daily sums agree within 1 mm of rain amount. In 8
out of 10 cases the Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer showed
slightly higher (10%) values than the optical disdro-
meter and the Hellmann rain gauge. The agreement be-
tween the last two instruments is not surprising because
the optical disdrometer and Hellmann gauge also have
nearly identical housings with similar wind effects.
When looking at daily rain sums, the observed sample
of drops is large and stochastic variations caused by the
quantization of rain by drops become negligible. Then
the observed variations reflect systematic instrumental
differences. The variations of rain amount measured
with the optical disdrometer are similar to those of the
134 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 17

FIG. 3. Mean spectral number density vs drop diameter, 0611–0620 CET 21 May 1997;
comparison of optical disdrometer (solid line) and Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer (dashed line).

Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer and the Hellmann rain
gauge, known to be in the order of 10% when measuring
daily rain sums. Nespor (1998) discussed the influence
of the wind.
The optical disdrometer measures size and velocity
of single particles, allowing a velocity–size correlation.
In Fig. 6, velocity versus drop diameter for the approx-
imately 29 000 measured drops of 5 July 1997 is plotted.
Each drop results in a point of the diagram. The dashed
line in Fig. 6 also shows the empirical relation from
Atlas et al. (1973) after the measurements from Gunn
and Kinzer (1949). The measurements scatter signifi-
cantly around the empirical curve. This scatter is caused
by turbulence of air close to the ground influencing the

FIG. 4. Time series of rain rate during 1600–1700 CET 5 Jul 1997; comparison of optical
disdrometer (solid line) and Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer (dashed line).
FEBRUARY 2000 L Ö F F L E R - M A N G A N D J O S S 135

FIG. 5. Daily rain sums of 10 days during May–Jul 1997; comparison of optical disdrometer,
Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer, and conventional Hellmann rain gauge.

FIG. 6. Drop velocity vs drop diameter for 5 Jul 1997: each point represents the velocity and
the size of a single drop (total number of drops: ø29 000); comparison with empirical curve of
Atlas (1973) after Gunn and Kinzer (1949): y 5 9.65 2 10.3e20.6D .
136 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 17

FIG. 7. (a) Spectral number density vs snowflake diameter for 5-h interval, 0900–1400 CET
1 Mar 1998; comparison of optical disdrometer (solid) and ETH particle spectrometer (dashed).
(b) Mean velocity of particles in size classes vs snowflake diameter for the period in (a), comparison
of optical disdrometer (squares), ETH particle spectrometer (crosses), and empirical curve (dashed
line, Locatelli and Hobbs 1974).

fall velocity and, probably more important, by instru-
mental limitations, such as the uncertainties caused by
quantization and thresholding. The cutoff at approxi-
mately 0.3-mm drop diameter results from the trigger
level used to detect the drops (a trigger level is necessary
to separate drop signals from noise); the line-by-line
structure of the data points comes from the 20-ms time
resolution of the A/D conversion.
The cutoff at low velocities results from the maximum
value of detected signal durations, which was 2.54 ms
(127 A/D conversion time steps) for rain measurements.
Some hundred data points can be seen in the range
directly above the cutoff line. These signals were mainly
produced by drops splashing on the housing and, there-
fore, having unrealistically low velocities. They could
be removed by plausibility considerations.
FEBRUARY 2000 L Ö F F L E R - M A N G A N D J O S S
FIG. 8. Ten-min means of radar reflectivity vs time, 0900–1400 CET 1 Mar 1998; comparison
of optical disdrometer (solid), ETH particle spectrometer (dashed), and ETH X-band Doppler radar
100 m above ground level (dotted).
b. Snow measurements
During February and March 1998, a number of rain
and snow events were investigated in Linthal in the
Swiss Alps. On 1 March 1998 a predominantly strati-
form snowfall was recorded with the optical disdrometer
(with tunnel housing), the ETH particle spectrometer
(Swiss Federal Institute, Zürich; Barthazy et al. 1998),
and vertically pointing X-band Doppler radar (Mosi-
mann et al. 1993). For 5 h the echo top was detected
by the radar at a height of 2.7 km above ground level.
A tipping bucket measured 5 mm of precipitation.
For both disdrometers spectral number densities were
calculated as functions of particle size. Distributions
were integrated over 10 min. In addition, the mean par-
ticle velocity for each size class was calculated assuming
a spherical shape. The particle size was assumed to be
the maximum horizontal dimension of the snowflake
seen. During the 5 h of observation both instruments
showed similar behavior.
For the intercomparison the mean size distribution
for the 5-h period is shown in Fig. 7a, the mean particle
velocities in Fig. 7b. The number densities (size) of the
two instruments agree well in most size classes. Dif-
ferences occur at the small diameter end, where the
optical disdrometer was not sensitive in the first two
classes caused by the trigger level used. This error has
been recognized and corrected. At the large diameter
end only the optical disdrometer measured a single
snowflake in the size class of 12–14 mm. Compared to
an empirical velocity–size relation y 5 0.8D 0.16 (Fig.
7b), taken from Locatelli and Hobbs (1974), the esti-
mated velocities show significant differences. Both siz-
137
ing instruments estimate the velocities clearly above the
empirical curve, especially for the larger snowflakes.
This could be simply because the snowflakes investi-
gated in Switzerland were different from those found
by Locatelli and Hobbs. On the other hand, if the ob-
served snowflakes were more broad than high (the ver-
tical extent of the snowflakes is shorter than the mea-
sured width), this would result in an overestimate of the
fall speed of particles larger than the thickness of the
light sheet. Its thickness in the optical disdrometer is 1
mm, in the ETH particle spectrometer only 0.15 mm.
This difference may contribute to the difference between
the two instruments and the dashed relation (for den-
drites according to Locatelli and Hobbs 1974). It would
also explain why the speed of smaller snowflakes es-
timated with the optical disdrometer comes closer to the
empirical curve than with the ETH particle spectrom-
eter.
Finally, radar reflectivity factors were derived from
the particle size distributions as suggested by Smith
(1984), with the assumption that the radar cross section
of an irregular particle is the same as that of a sphere
of the same mass (then he used an artifice from Marshall
and Gunn 1952). When using the equivalent diameter
of melted drops, the dielectric factor has to be multiplied
by 1.18 to compensate for the density of water with
respect to ice, resulting in the value 0.208 instead of
0.176. For the mass determination of snowflakes again
a relation according to Locatelli and Hobbs (1974) was
used: M 5 0.059D 2.1 . Averages over 10 min of radar
reflectivity versus time are shown in Fig. 8, together
with reflectivities from the vertically pointing X-band
138 JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
FIG. 9. Schematic concept for using velocity and size information to detect the different types
of hydrometeors.
radar measured 100 m above ground level. The results
of the disdrometers agree well with each other, but
sometimes there is a discrepancy of up to 5 dB of the
values measured with radar. The difference may be
caused by some wetness of the snow or even more by
changes of the particle type. First estimations have
shown that the use of different mass–size relations (re-
lated to different particle types) has a strong influence
on the radar reflectivity derived from particle size dis-
tributions. For a single size distribution, variations of
up to 20 dB are possible. Obviously there is a need for
additional research on how to derive radar reflectivity
factors for snowflakes.
4. Summary and future development
An optical disdrometer was presented and results
from rain and snow were compared with data from a
Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer, a Hellmann rain gauge,
and a particle spectrometer. The overall agreement is
good.
The error in determining size in the whole range does
not exceed 6100 mm plus 65%. This was verified when
comparing drop concentration in the 20 size classes of
the Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer. These error limits are
expected to also be valid for size classes above those
recognized by the Joss–Waldvogel disdrometer. For the
velocity measurements, the error for the smallest drops
(0.3 mm) yields values of 25% and goes down to 10%
for the largest drops (5 mm). For daily rain sums the
standard deviation between instruments is around 10%.
VOLUME 17
Future work may include aspects of instrumental im-
provement as well as the application of the instrument
to obtain information on the precipitation process.
1) Instrumental work:
R investigate the value of the velocity information
to identify and eliminate edge effects,
R estimate effects of drops splashing on the housing,
and
R test a modified sensor to extend the measuring
range toward small drizzle drops.
2) Applications:
R collect more experience in measuring rain and
snow,
R make use of the combined velocity–size infor-
mation for detecting the type of hydrometeor (see
Fig. 9),
R analyze strong precipitation events and deduce a
measure for soil erosion by large raindrops, and
R investigate the representativity of point measure-
ments by combining the results of a number of
identical instruments operated simultaneously.
Acknowledgments. We would like to thank F. Fiedler
for making the development of the instrument possible.
Furthermore, thanks to E. Barthazy for preparing the
snow measurements with the ETH particle spectrometer
and Doppler radar, and to J. Handwerker for simulating
instrumental errors. Additionally, we would like to ex-
press our appreciation for the helpful comments of three
anonymous reviewers.
FEBRUARY 2000 L Ö F F L E R - M A N G A N D J O S S
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