Use of Digital Radar Data in Severe Weather Forecasting

Forecasting severe weather conditions is a difficult problem due to both the small size and short lifetime of the storms. Conventional weather information is too coarse in time and space to follow individual storms but can indicate areas where probability of occurrence is many times higher than climatological values. Weather radars have the resolution in time and space to track severe storms, but present operational radars are not equipped to give quantitative data. Recent developments in electronics and data processing have greatly simplified the task of obtaining quantitative data, and examples are shown of work underway at Air Force Geophysics Laboratory in using digital radar to forecast small-scale convective storms. Experiments have been made in automatically tracking storms and producing guidance forecasts of severe weather probability. A difficult problem remains in developing relationships between radar measurements and intense wind, rain, and hail due to the scarcity of meteorological measurements of such unusual events.