posted on Aug, 15 2003 @ 01:02 PM
I grabbed the link from George Noory's websight. It was an anonymous viewer who sent the link to him so I guess the person to thank remains unknown.
I was monitoring intellicast radar after the outage went full story last night but they no longer do the base reflectivity in this manor. I'll have
to look into what this particular signiture is capturing but I think DR is right on. This is an obvious anomolous building up of something. Could it
be such a cooincidence that it happens to be located near the outage epicenter?
Just wanted to add in some info about base reflectivity from the source of the image in question..
Reflectivity data shows the radar's signal reflected back to the radar by liquid and frozen droplets in the atmosphere. Base Reflectivity data is
gathered at all elevation angles surveyed in each volume scan, but only four of these elevation angles, tilts 1 through 4, are available to users
outside the National Weather Service.
Figure 2 shows the elevation angles (tilts) generally used by most NEXRAD sites. Elevation angles at some locations with unique geography may differ
somewhat. For example, the Los Angeles, California NEXRAD is stationed at the top of a mountain. Tilt 1 for the Los Angeles radar will be between
0.00� and 0.40�.
What Is Base Reflectivity?
Personal AccuWeather provides access to Base Reflectivity Tilts 1-4 images for the entire network of 143 NEXRAD Doppler Radars in the Continental US
and also San Juan, Puerto Rico. The format of the key on the right of the images is as follows:
Doppler Radar
Product (Base Reflectivity)
Date / Time
Site ID / Range
Tilt (Elevation Angle - 0.5 degrees)
Radar Mode
Intensity Key (Increasing Positive Numbers Are Stronger)
Maximum Reflectivity Echo Intensity (in dBZ) The Base Reflectivity, Tilt 1 product, reflectivity data gathered at the 0.50� elevation angle, is the
product most like that available from conventional radar. The radar makes one 360� sweep at 0.50� above the local horizon, and the reflectivity data
gathered from this sweep is what is displayed on the Base Reflectivity, Tilt 1 product. The elevation angles corresponding to Tilts 2 through 4 are
listed in the table above. These are the same elevation angles as those used for the base velocity, Tilts 1 through 4 products.
Base Reflectivity, Tilt 1 shows the location and intensity of precipitation that is reaching the ground. That is the intensity of precipitation, be it
rain or snowfall, that is being experienced at ground level. The higher elevation angles display the location and intensity of precipitation aloft
which will, in most instances, eventually reach the ground (in situations where the lower levels of the atmosphere, near the ground, are eventually
very dry, some of the precipitation aloft may evaporate before reaching the ground; this is known as virga).
[Edited on 15-8-2003 by astrocreep]