Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail, etc.). Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the intensity of the precipitation. Both types of data can be analyzed to determine the structure of storms and their potential to cause severe weather.
During World War II, radar operators discovered that weather was causing echoes on their screen, masking potential enemy targets. Techniques were developed to filter them, but scientists began to study the phenomenon. Soon after the war, surplus radar were used to detect precipitations. Since then, weather radar has evolved on its own and is now used by national weather services, research departments in universities as well as in television broadcasts. Raw images are routinely used and specialized software can take radar data to make short term forecast of future positions and intensities of rain, snow, hail, and other weather phenomena. Their output is even incorporated into numerical weather prediction models to improve analyses and forecasts.
Read more about Weather Radar: History, Main Types of Radar Outputs, Limitations and Artifacts
Famous quotes containing the words weather and/or radar:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So I begin to understand why my mother’s radar is so sensitive to criticism. She still treads the well-worn ruts of her youth, when her impression of mother was of a woman hard to please, frequently negative, and rarely satisfied with anyone—least of all herself.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)