What are the uses of weather radar?

Meteorological radar is a radar specially used for atmospheric detection. Belonging to active microwave atmospheric remote sensing equipment. The high-altitude wind radar used with radiosonde is only a special equipment for positioning displacement balloons, and it is generally not considered as such radar.

Meteorological radar is one of the main detection tools for early warning and forecasting small-scale weather systems (such as typhoons and rainstorm clouds).

Conventional radar equipment generally consists of directional antenna, transmitter, receiver, antenna controller, display and camera equipment, computer and image transmission.

Meteorological Doppler radar operating in 30 ~ 3000 MHz frequency band. Generally, it has high detection sensitivity. Because the detection height can reach 1 ~ 100 km, it is also called MSTradar. It is mainly used to detect the vertical distribution of atmospheric dynamic parameters such as wind, atmospheric turbulence and atmospheric stability (see atmospheric static stability) in a clear atmosphere.

Weather radar uses a wide range of radio wavelengths, from 1 cm to 1000 cm. They are usually divided into different bands to represent the main functions of radar. The commonly used wavelengths of 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20cm correspond to K-band (wavelength 0.75 ~ 2.4cm), X-band (wavelength 2.4 ~ 3.75cm), C-band (wavelength 3.75 ~ 7.5cm) and S-band (wavelength 7.5 ~ 65cm) respectively. The performance of radar in detecting atmospheric targets is closely related to its working wavelength. Considering the scattering and absorption of radio waves by cloud and rain particles, various bands have only a certain scope of application. K-band radar is often used to detect clouds that do not produce precipitation, while X-band radar, C-band radar and S-band radar are used to detect precipitation. Among them, S-band radar is most suitable for detecting rainstorm and hail, and ultra-high frequency and ultra-high frequency radar with high sensitivity can detect the clear sky flow field in troposphere-stratosphere-middle layer.

Weather radar