Can Radar Planes be used to study Tornado Genesis?
607361
Actually NOAA has quite a handful of planes with high-quality radar, and they do use them in such projects.  I direct you to http://www.stormresearch.com/vortex/ for one such project, and http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2002/ihop.html for a more recent project on rain.\nI am currently related to a project looking at some high resolution Dopplar data from a hurricane a few years back while it was over the ocean.\n\nRegular WSR-88D Dopplar (the network the NWS uses) is decently effective at general alerting to possible tornadic storms... and it would be extremely expensive to send planes out all the time just for warning purposes (though there is a new test-project to setup a larger network of low cost radars to improve warnings a lot (http://www.casa.umass.edu/)).\n\nBut there are some things regular 88Ds can't give us, including:\n- better time and spatial resolution of features (we want to be near a tornado to get a more precise view of what it looks like, and WSR88Ds only update something like every 5 minutes because they scan the entire 360 degree sky)\n- the vertical wind fields.  You need at least two properly located radars to get the full 3-dimensional structure of winds... and this is crucial to understanding what's actually happening in a storm.\n\nSo, yes, portable Dopplars are very useful.  They also help us look at weather in places where we don't/can't have any fixed radars (like at sea or in mountain ranges).\nGenerally, portable radars on trucks will get us the same information, are much cheaper (and safer) to transport, you don't have to worry about removing the motion of the radar (planes are moving, trucks can be stopped), and you don't have as much trouble with beams hitting the ground... and thus most of our tornado information comes from truck-mounted radars like the famous Dopplar on Wheels (http://aaron.ou.edu/dow/dow.htm).  However, there are some reasons to use planes even in such experiments, including better upper-level resolution, the ability to reposition quicker, and the fact that trucks can only hold and power radars that are a cerain size.\n\nPlanes are indeed useful, and hopefully we'll continue to get better ones for research... as they really can provide quite a great suite of information (dropsondes (weather sensors that are dropped from airplanes) are also great because they give a rather quick profile of the atmosphere)!\n\nAwesome question!\n\nHope I helped answer things,\nGod bless,\nShane
861786
Call newschannel 3, I bet they would look into it.  Royal Norman may even already have an answer.  I have not seen them, though I live very close to you.  I'll have to keep my eye on the SE sky.  Do they occur at a certain time, or various times?  Are they low to the horizon?
20655
The links on this site may help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector
599792
Tornado Alley might have the MOST frequency of tornadoes, but the worst type of tornadoes , I believe,are "waterspouts": tornadoes that form on oceans (yikes! where to hide from that one?)  They occur fairly around warm waters (including Florida).\n\nCheck these chilling pictures out\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Trombe.jpg\nhttp://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/nws/images/big/wea00312.jpg
751696
well considering the tornado "belt" is primarily flat open land i'm going to venture to say that any "relief" on your "topography" would reduce the amount occurances of tornados. but i'm just guessing
133718
There are two kinds of doppler radar. One is the radar cops use to tell if you are speeding. The waves come out of the radar gun and bounce off your car. Depending on whether your car is moving toward the radar or away, it either adds a little energy to the waves or takes a little away. This changes the frequency (how many waves per second.) The radar gun detects the reflected waves coming back (like an echo) and calculates the speed based on the difference between the original frequency and the frequency when it returns changed. The radar gun displays a number, and that's how fast you are going. They are very accurate.\n\nDoppler weather radar works in a similar way, but it is measuring the speed of the clouds. The faster the clouds move, it generally means the heavier the rain is (also for violent thunderstorms and tornados.) The radar picks up the movement of the clouds, because just like the metal in your car, they reflect some of the microwaves that the radar set puts out. Same as the speed radar, they can tell whether the storm is moving toward the radar or away from it, and how fast. A computer assigns each speed value a different color and that is the radar map you see on the news channel. It shows the clouds all moving at slightly different speeds, with the fastest ones being the most dangerous (dump the most rain, generate the most lightning, cause the most wind damage.)\n\nProblems with it. If you are not moving toward the cop car or away from it, they can't tell how fast you are moving. The radar can't tell anything about something moving at a right angle to the radar beam. The waves come out in a fairly tight beam, like a searchlight, only invisible. The object has to stay in the beam for the radar system to recognize the waves that are coming back. In the case of an object moving across the beam, the waves return with their frequency unchanged, meaning that it is not moving closer toward or further away from the radar, then it moves out of the beam and the radar doesn't know it is there any more. It does not 'see' it.  That's why it can't tell how fast that item is moving. \n\nI think that weather radar usually has several stations throughout an area, or the radar beam sweeps across the area like a searchlight, so it can show several overlapping pictures of the same storm. Also, if it is just an air mass (no clouds) the radar can't 'see' it, because the radar waves go through the air. Air is transparent to radar, just like it is to light.\n\nI haven't said anything about how the radar set generates microwaves, or about how military stealth jets are less visible to radar, that would be another whole long topic. I think you wanted to know how the radar works in relation to the outside world, not how it works inside. I hope this helps.
525590
radio-immune precipitation
227632
Some of them do - primarily in large markets where they can afford them. I never yet saw one that matches the NWS so much as overall data quality is concerned though. Yeah they can include some neat features like zooming into streets that the data is not even accurate enough to do reliably*, and for some areas they may be better, but often echoes over large areas are not portrayed as well as with the NWS'. Even if they know how to use it properly, they may have very little choice where their radar is located. That can make a big difference - the NWS places them at sites to maximize quality & coverage.\n\nRegarding the previous post, I've forecast in some capacity for 23 years and for a very satisfied client for 10. People should be aware that radar images do not make a large portion of the information forecasters use. Past the nowcast stage (next 6 hours or so), about the only thing radar images are good for is that they give an idea of the character of precipitation associated with weather systems expected to affect a region later and how well the model forecasts are verifying - but that is only for the large scale. I.e., a local doppler radar image is practically useless except for storms which are imminent. The primary skill of forecasting is looking beyond that which you see and determining what you will be seeing at some future time using all of the available information along with your knowledge of how weather develops. I don't want to seem like a jerk responding to other people's posts, but people should realize that forecasters use much more than radar images. The reason they are not on the same page is because they all have different ideas, learned different things, have different amounts of experience, have different biases, etc. - so they produce different forecasts.\n\n* For example, the 2 NWS sites which provide coverage where I am are BGM & DIX. If an echo is directly over me, the DIX radar can show it as much as 5 miles to my N and the BGM radar as much as 14 miles to my S - usually quite a bit nearer than those extremes. Algorithms can adjust for that, but it seems also to vary with the specific situation.
565442
That sounds like an interesting topic.  Here are some good websites (I tried to pick reputable ones) to help you get started.  Good luck on your portfolio.\n\nhttp://www.noaa.gov/tornadoes.html\nThis one has a good summary of what a tornado is, where and when they occur, and explains the scale used to rate tornadoes.  It's got many links to other helpful sites too.\n\nhttp://www.wildwildweather.com/twisters.htm\nThis site has a lot of good info on how tornadoes form and also has a lot of images of tornadoes and people who chase them.\n\nhttp://www.weatherwizkids.com/tornado.htm\nThis site is geared towards younger audiences, it's very good at explaining tornadoes and many facts about them.
148430
A ultra-high frequency radio signal is generated by a magnitron transmitter tube.  A burst of signal is transmitted to a parabolic antenna which focuses the signal in one direction, through a hollow tube called a waveguide.  Just like a light is focused in a flashlight!\nFollowing the transmission the radar set goes into receive mode and receives the reflection of the transmitted signal.  The time delay represents the distance away from the transmitting / receiving antenna. The further away the longer it takes the signal to travel.  Now something will only be visable to radar if it is larger than a quarter wavelenth.  What this means to you in practical terms is this something can be so small that it cannot return a signal on some frequency!  So Radars that search for enemy aircraft have multiple frequencies so that they can detect multi-sized targets.  Aircraft when they come at you present a small target, although they are large.  Anyway Hope I have been of some use.\n\nHave a good day.\nIf you need more detail ask in additional details I can answer any specific.\n\nAPS
431766
Most of the time, yes.  For instance, almost all tornadoes in the Northern Hemisphere are counterclockwise.  However, because of their small size, there is a small fudge factor that can allow the rare anticyclonic tornado, and these have been recorded.
51986
Are you referring to millimeter wave radar? I'm not familiar with any system that includes lasers.\n\nMillimeter wave radar is just radar of a particular band (somewhere between 30 GHz and 300 GHz). Some applications include cloud radar to detect the tops and bottoms of clouds; using doppler techniques to detect vertical movement within a cloud; and adaptive cruise control in cars to maintain a pre-set distance.
1097410
No, don't think a tornado is a possibility. But if they tied themselves together and lit their farts, do you think they would take off?  :)
515568
Yep it all depends on if the  warm air current is rising up to meet a cold one that is coming down and they clash enough to make a vortex. Tornado's can happen pretty much anywhere.
1157667
The land in the central United States is the best breeding ground for the storms which produce tornadoes. The land in the Great Plains is relatively flat, which allows cold dry polar air from Canada to meet warm moist tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico. It's along the front between the two airmasses that most tornadoes form. \n\nMost tornadoes in the United States form in an area called "Tornado Alley". This area includes parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. Storm chasers travel to this area because of the high concentration of tornadoes. These tornadoes are formed by thunderstorms. Some of the tornadoes in the southern states such as Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia are caused by hurricanes.
625019
What may have happened was the funnel cloud you saw was either a downburst or a cold air funnel.\n\nHowever, in the case they aren't cold air funnels or downbursts and the NWS doesn't catch it in time and doesn't issue a tornado warning, it might be that their equippment didn't catch it in time or that no spotters saw it.  \n\nWeather spotters and weather radar isn't perfect.  So err on the side of caution when you see severe weather.  Even if it's a severe thunderstorm warning, head indoors and don't be chicken to head to the basement.
47429
Go here http://www.fema.gov/hazards/tornadoes/\nand here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes