All, The next two years will see all NWS radars equipped with dual polarization which essentially adds a vertically oriented pulse to the horizontal oriented pulse of energy. There will be a slew of new radar products to learn and interpret.
The advantages of dual polar are that meteorologists will be able to better determine precipitation types, drop-sized distributions of raindrops and mixed precipitation. It also will determine non-meteorological targets better (birds!!). There are interesting radar products like differential phase, which helps us with rainfall drop-sized distributions. I wonder if this new technology will help determine the size of migrating birds? Will a flock of geese appear different than songbirds? This could be an exciting time for "radar" birding. For more information on this.... check out this website.... http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~schuur/radar.html Dave Nicosia Johnson City, NY -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
