An Inside Look At Doppler
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| The 88D radar dome Gray, ME. |
JJ: "At this point we're looking at a big dome, which is the radar dome on top of a tower that is about 50 feet tall. Inside the dome is where the radar is actually located."
And inside is where we headed. We climbed several flights of stairs into what looks like a giant soccer ball, much like all the 120 other radar domes across the country whose collective views are stitched together to give us a look at weather and wind. Inside, the motionless radar dish above us commanded attention in the warm, poorly lit surroundings. Our voices bounced off the walls, much like radar signals bounce off distant objects.
JJ: "Basically what happens is the radar sends out pulses of energy and those pulses of energy are reflected by objects in the atmosphere, things like snowflakes and raindrops. Depending on how long it takes for that pulse of energy to be reflected back, tells us how far away the object is. Depending on how much energy comes back tells us how heavy the precipitation is."
But Doppler is more than that.
JJ: "The other thing the Doppler radar does is it can measure the individual droplets. And by finding out if they're moving toward or away from the radar we find out what the wind is like. It's a lot more detailed than the radar's we used to have 10 or 20 years ago."
We'll hear how those details pay off, tomorrow right here on The Weather Notebook.
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| John Jensenius sitting at the PUP (Primary User Processor).
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