Abstract: In order to obtain more detailed small-scale weather system data, Meteorological Observation Center of China Meteorological Administration (CMA) designed and developed X-band array weather radar (AWR), cooperating with relevant manufacturers. In March of 2018, the first prototypeis deployed at Changsha Airport for field experiments. Combing advantages of networked radars and a distributed phased array technology, the AWR has a highly coordinated scanning mode and high spatial and temporal resolutions to acquire fine echo intensity and wind field data. Compared with conventional parabolic antenna weather radars, a phased array antenna has wider beams and stronger side lobes, so that more ground clutter will appear in radar echoes. If the ground clutter cannot be effectively detected and removed, the accuracy of radar products will be affected seriously.Data collected by the X-band AWR at Changsha Airport are used to study the ground clutter detection algorithm for the AWR. According to the research progress all over the world, characteristic parameters of reflectivity factors, radial velocity and velocity spectrum width are extracted. In addition, time variability of reflectivity factor (T_VR), a new parameter, is added due to the high temporal and spatial resolution of the AWR. Based on analyzing statistical characteristics of each feature parameter, membership functions are determined. The contribution of T_VR to the clutter detection algorithm and the performance of the algorithm on different weather conditions are analyzed. Results show that the accuracy of ground clutter detection for Changsha Airport AWR can be maximally increased by 4% by adding T_VR, and the error rate of detecting the precipitation echo as clutter echo can be decreased by 2%. The accuracy of the proposed ground clutter detection algorithm reaches 96% in the detection of ground clutter when no precipitation processes happen. In the precipitation weather, the accuracy is 92%, and the error rate of detecting the precipitation echo as clutter echo is about 10%. The algorithm can basically detect and remove the ground clutter echoes from precipitation echoes.