Deb and COBirds, There are many examples available on the internet of bird migration behind cold fronts in fall on radar as well as northward migration behind warm fronts in spring. This is a relatively common occurrence.
With the new radar upgrades that are being done across the country, every National Weather Service (NWS) radar will be gaining some amazing capabilities. The upgrade is from the standard Doppler radar that you are used to seeing on tv or online to what is called a Dual-Polarization Radar (look here (training from NWS), here (FAQ from NWS), or here (short video from NWS) if you want to learn more). With this upgrade, there will be an algorithm in the NWS's software (not available to the public) that is called the "hydrometeor classification scheme". This algorithm helps discriminate rain from snow from hail from ice pellets from biological targets (insects, bats, and birds!) from "ground clutter". It is not a perfect system by any means, but offers a nice glimpse at the expected precipitation based on the radar echoes. Here is the part that gets me! They aren't offering it anywhere online that I can tell. There are websites that are serving the data in numerical form (i.e., some data format that a computer needs to read), but nobody seems to be offering the data in a graphical format. There are programs that can read the data and make the pretty pictures out of it, but they are costly ($200 or so). Even if you did get this program, I am not certain that ALL of the new products these radars offer would be available. Even as a meteorologist by degrees and an employee of UCAR/NCAR, I still haven't seen real-time versions of this data. I have just seen screengrabs of them from NWS employees. Somewhat disappointing. Will let you know if these do become available online somewhere. It may just come with a tutorial as well if I am feeling motivated at the time. Bryan Guarente Instructional Designer/Meteorologist The COMET Program University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Boulder, CO -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
