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Abstract. As an effective technique to improve the rainfall forecast, data assimilation plays an important role in meteorology and hydrology. The aim of this study is to explore the reasonable use of Doppler radar data assimilation to correct the initial and lateral boundary conditions of the numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is applied to simulate three typhoon storm events on the southeast coast of China. Radar data from a Doppler radar station in Changle, China, are assimilated with three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3-DVar) model. Nine assimilation modes are designed by three kinds of radar data and at three assimilation time intervals. The rainfall simulations in a medium-scale catchment, Meixi, are evaluated by three indices, including relative error (RE), critical success index (CSI), and root mean square error (RMSE). Assimilating radial velocity at a time interval of 1 h can significantly improve the rainfall simulations, and it outperforms the other modes for all the three storm events. Shortening the assimilation time interval can improve the rainfall simulations in most cases, while assimilating radar reflectivity always leads to worse simulations as the time interval shortens. The rainfall simulations can be improved by data assimilation as a whole, especially for the heavy rainfall with strong convection. The findings provide references for improving the typhoon rainfall forecasts at catchment scale and have great significance on typhoon rainstorm warning.