The Weather Channel - Radar (2024)

FAQs

How do you slow down the radar on the Weather Channel? ›

Screen 1.

If your animation plays too slowly or quickly, you can control it by tapping on the Layers button on the right, and then on the top selecting “Animation speed”. The 24-hour Radar provides a slightly different display for the partially opened bottom panel.

Precipitation moving perpendicular to the radar beam (in a circle around the radar) will have a radial velocity of zero, and will be colored grey. The velocity is given in knots (10 knots = 11.5 mph).

Yellow, orange, and red indicate moderate to heavy rainfall and can also indicate hail. Whites or blues mean snowfall and pink indicates freezing rain, sleet, or a wintry mix.

As the beam travels away from the radar source, it gets higher above the ground due to the curvature of the Earth. Therefore, if the precipitation is restricted to very low levels, especially within a few hundred feet from the ground, the radar beam might overshoot it, leading to undetected rainfall.

Radar Beam Exercise

When navigating using VOR's, they used the 1-In-60 rule (i.e. if an aircraft is 60nm from a VOR and 1° off-track, the aircraft is 1nm off-track). But there is a more generic form of the rule that is useful for radar. Just take the radar range and add two zeros to find out what one degree equals.

Sharp edges and flat surfaces mounted at an angle can act like mirrors, deflecting radar signals and preventing a radar system from receiving accurate information.

On a weather radar map, a tornado is usually indicated by a smaller area of red surrounded by a larger area of green. However, modern radar systems can also indicate debris balls, a sign of a tornado on the ground.

Black dots represent divergence centers. Arrow length is proportional to wind speed. Negative (positive) Doppler velocities represent flow toward (away from) the radar. (

It is depicted by a color scale from dark blue/purple to dark red. The blue side shows cold areas and is also the color used to show precipitation as snow, greens are rain, and as it goes from green to yellows, oranges and red that depicts heat, usually dry atmospheric heat.

Answer and Explanation:

The colors on a weather map indicate the amount of precipitation an area is, or will be, receiving. Generally speaking the darker the color the more precipitation indicated. Light and dark blue usually indicate snow, while dark red and purple mean strong to severe thunder storms.

What do the colors on my radar mean? ›

Purple - Magenta: 65-70 dBZ (May indicate thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, or hurricanes or other extreme weather) Red – Dark Red: 55-65 dBZ (Severe) Orange – Orange-Red: 45-50 dBZ (Moderate to Severe) Yellow – Dark Yellow: 35-40 dBZ (Moderate) Green – Dark Green: 25-30 dBZ (light to moderate precipitation)

A patch of dark red moving toward your location means there's a thunderstorm on the way. A line of heavy precipitation moving in unison is a sign of a squall line that could pack gusty winds.

A phenomenon called "ducting" can cause the radar beam to be reflected toward the ground, showing non-existent precipitation. Ducting can occur in the early-morning hours if the surface temperature is cooler than the air aloft. Birds and bugs flying into the path of the radar beam may also produce false radar echoes.

This black hole represents the part of the storm that radar can't "see" because the storm is overtop of the radar site. When a radar scans the atmosphere for storms, it tilts at different elevations.

Well most radars have an invisible beam that circles around at different heights and angles in the sky. This tells us if things are falling out of the sky. At times, the beam coming out of the radar (depending on where the radar is) can miss low altitude clouds, fog, and depending on its location.

The Tune control is used to tune the receiver in the Radar antenna for maximum target returns on the display. The Radar comes from the factory already tuned so this operation is not necessary at first installation. In general Radar tuning may be necessary if the Radar antenna was serviced.

Mechanical jamming is caused by devices that reflect or re-reflect radar energy back to the radar to produce false target returns on the operator's scope. Mechanical jamming devices include chaff, corner reflectors, and decoys.

Wind Farm Interference. Wind farms can impact Doppler radars in three ways if the turbine blades are moving and they are within the radar's line of sight. If close enough (within a few kilometers) they can partially block a significant percentage of the beam and attenuate data down range of the wind farm.

Gain is used to increase the receiving sensitivity of the radar. It need to be adjusted to a level where targets are visible but there is no other interference on the screen. And we use Rain control to reduce the clutter echo caused by rain.