Red Radar

Posted in September 29, 2009 ¬ 4:01 pmh.adminNo Comments »

Red Radar
When you look at radar on tv or internet how do you tell if there is hail in that storm?

I was just wondering when you look at radar maps on tv or on the internet, how do you tell if there is hail in the storm? I think the red on the map is heavy rain but not sure, is there a way to tell just by looking at the colors?

Looking just the color may not work. Thunderstorms with tropical moisture, due to the large size droplets of water in the storm, can produce strong reflectivity core colors that can easily be mistaken for hail. Sometimes ground clutter from higher terrain can give you embedded colors in the cell that may also look like hail. So color are usually used after a hail pattern is detected.

When a pulse of energy from a radar hits the hail stones high in the thundercloud, the return signal that the radar gets back is usually different from what you would expect from the normal raindrop. Therefore, a thunderstorms that has hail forming high within the clouds will sometimes produce an unique image on a radar screen. This unique image is what the radar operator will look for to identify thunderstorms that will likely produce hail sometimes even before the hail starts falling from the thunder cloud.

So what are these unique images we usually look for in a thunderstorm with hail? We look for two things, we look for strong energy returns in the mid to upper levels of the storm and we look for a false return signal known as a “hail spike” or “three body scatter spike” The following links wil shows what this unique image will look like on a radar screen.

Here are an example of a strong mid to upper level strong energy return:
(Note that this first image is a radar reflectivity vertical cross section of thunder cell. These type of images are you not available for the public in real-time.)

http://okfirst.mesonet.org/train/materials/Tstorms/crefhail.gif

Here are some links and examples of hail spike radar images and “three body scatter patterns:

http://okfirst.mesonet.org/train/materials/Tstorms/hailspike.gif

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jan/?n=2006_02_03_hail_storms

http://www.nwas.org/ej/2008-EJ5/

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/mkx/wx_events/tornado/LateJuly2009/TBSS_09_2208Z.png

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/gid/?n=severehailjul262008

So if you see this type of pattern on radar, then there is a very good chance that you have hail with that thunder cell.

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