Weather Radar Speaks With Forked Tounge

[Bruce Wrenn]

I don't know about your area, but here weather radar is almost useless. Both today, and yesterday, radar showed we experiencing a thunder storm. You know the kind with bright sunshine falling from non existent clouds. Our location is easy to pinpoint on map, as we are half way between intersection of two highways and corner of county, plus at the end of one of the arms of Harris Lake. Right now, I can hear thunder close by, but radar sweep shows nothing anywhere close to us. Often, radar will show it's raining here, when it rained ten minutes ago, or vise versa.

[Bill Dufour]

Where? AFAIK During ww2 only one weather man was forced to stop broadcasting because he was too accurate. He moved to San Francisco after the war and was on KCBS radio for decades. The SF bay area has some of the most complex and diverse weather in the world. Easy 20-30 degree difference in 20-30 miles.
He aslo made a good living as a commercial forecaster for hire working for farmers and builders.
Bill D

[Warren Lake]

Granny Clampet had a weather beetle.

[Lee Schierer]

We live near Erie, PA about 80-90 miles from Cleveland. Our weather radar through apps comes from Cleveland. It often shows rain when our sky is just cloudy. We've had clear skies when the radar shows rain. There was a news artical a few years ago regarding this and the determination was that we are at the fringe area for doppler radar coverage.

[John K Jordan]

Bruce, have you tried a different radar source?

Weather radar here in e.tn usually seems accurate. Watching approaching rain, storms, and clearing almost seems like magic. Perhaps we are in a solid detection zone.

One thing, though. If I use Weather Bug on the iPad I have to close it down before using it later or it will display the previous weather. Other weather apps I’ve tried don’t make this mistake.

[Jim Becker]

It may be that it's currently so dry in many places that rain exciting the radar may not actually be reaching the ground. I've been having the same challenge here with the radar, too.

[Jim Koepke]

Weather Underground works for me > https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap

Of course the location details need to be set for your own area.

Mine looks like this:

484169

The star is near my location.

The information at times seems to be delayed by a minuter or a few. At times when it is raining and my mailbox being about a quarter mile walk round trip it is nice to use the animated feature to see if a break in the rain might be on the way.

With just about all the weather information one may have to extrapolate what it means for their own location. Our "local" TV is out of Portland, OR. There weather is often different than ours. From what they report for Portland and out to the coast can often be combined to show what different weather might be in between.

jtk

[Alan Rutherford]

Weather Underground works for me > https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap ...

Works for me, too. A little annoying getting it set up and making the display do what I want, but it's better than any other source I've found. Experience helps a lot. Get used to watching the animated display and you can become very good at short-term forecasts.

There are several sites that show lightning strikes. I like https://map.blitzortung.org Once you get zoomed in from the whole-world view, bookmark and you will come back to that view. Interesting and a good indication of where the thunderstorms are. Probably a lot more interesting here in Florida than some other places.

[Curt Harms]

It's good to pay attention to the time stamp if there is one. Sometimes what radar feeds show is what happened a few minutes ago, not what's happening now. Also it seems to me that radar images depict heavier precipitation than what's actually out there.

[Bruce Wrenn]

. Also it seems to me that radar images depict heavier precipitation than what's actually out there.This morning, while at the beach doing a commode replacement, looked at the weather radar for our place. Showed EXTREMELY HEAVY RAIN, and did so for over an hour. Get home tonight, and checked rain gauge. It contained less than 1/4" of rain.

[Alan Lightstone]

I recently found this, and have found it pretty accurate: https://www.iweathernet.com/total-rainfall-map-24-hours-to-72-hours

Usually I use Weatherbug and Weather Underground (theirs a neighbor of mine, 2 blocks away with sensors and a rain gauge, though his system goes down a lot). A friend recently recommended Max Tracker, though that may be a Florida thing.

So much variation here between neighborhoods. I have a local friend who has gotten no rain when I've gotten 3 inches.

[Curt Harms]

This morning, while at the beach doing a commode replacement, looked at the weather radar for our place. Showed EXTREMELY HEAVY RAIN, and did so for over an hour. Get home tonight, and checked rain gauge. It contained less than 1/4" of rain.

Maybe my memory is failing but it seems like the earlier generation weather radars green would be sprinkles, yellow would be a light shower, red would be your're gonna be soaked in less than a minute rain. Now it seems like green means maybe a few drops or just as likely not, yellow might be a very light shower or not.

[Alan Lightstone]

Maybe my memory is failing but it seems like the earlier generation weather radars green would be sprinkles, yellow would be a light shower, red would be your're gonna be soaked in less than a minute rain. Now it seems like green means maybe a few drops or just as likely not, yellow might be a very light shower or not.
Rain inflation?? Politically correct rain? Who knew?? :confused:

[Alan Rutherford]

It might not be perfect but sometimes weather radar will tell you things you won't learn any other way:

484325484326484327

[Alan Lightstone]

Or fun times like last week. Ah summer in Florida (only 3 inches of rain in a little over an hour):
484375

[Jim Becker]

Send some here, Alan. I'd be very happy to take a third of that from you at the moment...it's very "crispy" walking outside right now...

[Alan Lightstone]

I heard that, Jim. Really strange weather this year. We're, I think, about 8" above normal rain for the year, and now in rainy season. With my solar panels, I'm thrilled at nighttime rain. Not so much during the day. It's amazing how picky you can get with the weather.

Not expecting much snow this year. Hasn't snowed in Tampa in 45 years. Unclear if it ever has snowed in St. Petersburg. Debate about a tiny amount of sleet in 1989. Weather service says it wasn't snow.

A little different from my days of Nor'easters living North of Boston.

[Jim Becker]

We finally just got a break from the excessive humidity and that should hold through the week. There's also an upper level low that will be sitting above us for a few days, so there's hope for some much needed showers and shade to green things up a bit.