The Weather Notebook: Listener Question: Who Has the Best Radar?

Listener Question: Who Has the Best Radar?
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Hi I'm Dave Thurlow for the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. Here's a listener question today from Mickey Harber of Memphis, Tennessee. He listens to us on WYPL.

Doppler radar unit at Gray, ME.
"Many local stations advertise themselves of having the best Doppler radar for their area. Each station will display almost the same information. However each Doppler displays are different everywhere I look. Is there an official local station we can depend on in giving the official information needed? Also does the National Weather Service ever look at local TV station's local radar?"

This is a pretty common question. First of all, Doppler radar is the best available technology for sensing the intensity and movement of precipitation. It's based on a phenomenon called the Doppler shift. It measures differences in wavelength between rain, hail, or snow moving towards or away from the radar unit itself. All in all, it's very precise.

There is a Doppler radar unit at or near each of the 125 National Weather Service forecast offices in the country. The Memphis forecast office has its Doppler radar on a hill about 30 miles north of the city in the town of Millington. Three TV stations in Memphis, channels 3, 5, and 13, have Doppler units of their own, as do about 100 other stations around the country.

The difference? None. Stations may claim to be the best, but that's just subjective chest thumping. I guess you'd have to say the weather service radar is official, but all behave equally as well. The difference you see on TV comes from the video graphic design and presentation. You just have to choose what design is easiest to understand, and then make sure to act on weather warnings, which all ultimately come from the Weather Service.