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Scientific American
30-05-2025
- Climate
- Scientific American
Inside the Lifesaving Power of Doppler Weather Radar
Outside every National Weather Service (NWS) office around the U.S. stands what looks like an enormous white soccer ball, perched atop metal scaffolding several stories high. These somewhat plain spheres look as ho-hum as a town water tower, but tucked inside each is one of modern meteorology's most revolutionary and lifesaving tools: Doppler radar. The national network of 160 high-resolution radars, installed in 1988 and updated in 2012, sends out microwave pulses that bounce off raindrops or other precipitation to help forecasters see what is falling and how much—providing crucial early information about events ranging from flash floods to blizzards. And the network is especially irreplaceable when it comes to spotting tornadoes; it has substantially lengthened warning times and reduced deaths. Doppler radar has 'really revolutionized how we've been able to issue warnings,' says Ryan Hanrahan, chief meteorologist of the NBC Connecticut StormTracker team. But now meteorologists and emergency managers are increasingly worried about what might happen if any of these radars go offline, whether because of cuts to the NWS made by the Trump administration or threats from groups that espouse conspiracy theories about the radars being used to control the weather. 'Losing radar capabilities would 'take us back in time by four decades,' says Jana Houser, a tornado researcher at the Ohio State University. If they go down, 'there's no way we're going to be effective at storm warnings.' On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. How Doppler radars work The NWS installations form a network called the Next Generation Weather Radar, or NEXRAD. Inside each giant white sphere is a device that looks like a larger version of a home satellite TV dish, with a transmitter that emits pulses in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Those pulses bounce off raindrops, snowflakes, hailstones—what meteorologists collectively call hydrometeors—and back to the dish antenna. (The pulses also sometimes bounce off bats, birds and even moving trains, which yield characteristic radar patterns that experts can usually identify.) The power of the returning signals lets experts create a picture of size, shape and intensity of any precipitation—and this is what you see on a phone app's radar map or a TV broadcast. But NEXRAD can do much, much more than show how hard it's raining. Within its sphere, each unit rotates and scans up and down through the sky, helping forecasters see what is happening at multiple levels of a storm system. These vertical profiles can show, for example, whether a tornado is forming or a storm is creating a downburst—a rapid downward blast of wind. 'Doppler radar basically allows us to see in the clouds,' Hanrahan says. And then there's the 'Doppler' part itself. The name refers to a phenomenon that's familiar to many, thanks to the electromagnetic waves' acoustic counterpart. We've all experienced this, often most obviously when we hear an emergency vehicle siren pass nearby: the pitch increases as the car gets closer and decreases as it moves away. Similarly, the returning radar bounce from a rain droplet or piece of tornadic debris that is moving toward the emitter will have a shorter wavelength than the pulse that was sent out, and the signal from an object moving away from the radar will have a longer wavelength. This allows the radar to efficiently distinguish the tight circulation of a tornado. The nation's radar system was upgraded in 2012 to include what is called dual polarization. This means the signal has both vertically and horizontally oriented wavelengths, providing information about precipitation in more than one dimension. 'A drizzle droplet is almost perfectly spherical, so it returns the same amount of power in the horizontal and in the vertical,' Hanrahan says, whereas giant drops look almost like 'hamburger buns' and so send back more power in the horizontal than the vertical. Are Doppler radars dangerous? Can they affect the weather? Doppler radars do not pose any danger to people, wildlife or structures—and they cannot affect the weather. Along the electromagnetic spectrum, it is the portions with shorter wavelengths such as gamma rays and ultraviolet radiation that can readily damage the human body—because their wavelengths are the right size to interact with and damage DNA or our cells. Doppler radars emit pulses in wavelengths about the size of a baseball. Being hit by extremely concentrated microwave radiation could be harmful; this is why microwave ovens have mesh screens that keep the rays from escaping. Similarly, you wouldn't want to stand directly in front of a radar microwave beam. Military radar technicians found this out years ago when working on radars under operation, University of California, Los Angeles, climate scientist Daniel Swain said during one of his regular YouTube talks. They 'had experiences like the candy bar in their pocket instantly melting and then feeling their skin getting really hot,' he said. Similar to how a microwave oven works, when the microwave signal from a radar hits a hydrometeor, the water molecules vibrate and so generate heat because of friction and reradiate some of the received energy, says Cynthia Fay, who serves as a focal point for the National Weather Service's Radar Operations Center. But 'microwave radiation is really not very powerful, and the whole point is that if you stand more than a couple dozen feet away from the dome it's not even really going to affect your body, let alone the global atmosphere,' Swain adds. At the radar's antenna, the average power is about 23.5 megawatts (MW) of energy, Fay says. (A weak or moderate thunderstorm may generate about 18 MW in about an hour.) But the energy from the radar signal dissipates very rapidly with distance: at just one kilometer from the radar, the power is 0.0000019 MW, and at the radar's maximum range of 460 kilometers, it is 8.8 x 10 –12 MW, Fay says. 'Once you're miles away, it's just really not a dangerous amount' of energy, Swain said in his video. And Doppler radars spend most of their time listening for returns. According to the NWS, for every hour of operation, a radar may spend as little as seven seconds sending out pulses. The idea that Doppler radar can control or affect the weather is 'a long-standing conspiracy [theory] that has existed really for decades but has kind of accelerated in recent years,' Swain said in his video. It has resurfaced recently with threats to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration radar system from an antigovernment militia group, as first reported by CNN. The Washington Post reported that the group's founder said that its members were carrying out ' attack simulations ' on sites in order to later destroy the radars,—which the group believes are 'weather weapons,' according to an internal NOAA e-mail. NOAA has advised radar technicians at the NWS's offices to exercise caution and work in teams when going out to service radars—and to notify local law enforcement of any suspicious activity. 'NOAA is aware of recent threats against NEXRAD weather radar sites and is working with local and other authorities in monitoring the situation closely,' wrote a NWS spokesperson in response to a request for comment from Scientific American. What happens if weather radars go offline? NOAA's radars have been on duty for 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year since 1988 (with brief downtimes for maintenance and upgrades). 'It's amazing what workhorses these radars have been,' Hanrahan says. But they do require that periodic maintenance because of all the large moving parts needed to operate them. And with Trump administration cuts to NOAA staffing and freezes on some spending, 'we just got rid of a lot of the radar maintenance technicians, and we got rid of the budget to repair a lot of these sites,' Swain said in his video. 'Most of these are functioning fine right now. The question is: What happens once they go down, once they need a repair?' It is this outage possibility that most worries weather experts, particularly if the breakdowns occur during any kind of severe weather. 'Radars are key instruments in issuing tornado warnings,' the Ohio State University's Houser says. 'If a radar goes down, we're basically down as to what the larger picture is.' And for much of the country—particularly in the West—there is little to no overlap in the areas that each radar covers, meaning other sites would not be able to step in if a neighboring radar is out. Hanrahan says the information provided by the radars is irreplaceable, and the 2012 upgrades mean 'we don't even need to have eyes on a tornado now to know that it's happening. It's something that I think we take for granted now.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Anti-government group threatens key US weather radar sites
CHICAGO (NewsNation) — Officials from the National Weather Service are on alert after an anti-government group publicly made threats against radar installations across the country. Known as NEXRAD sites, or Next Generation Weather Radar, they are essential tools for meteorologists to monitor and forecast severe weather. Extremist group Veterans on Patrol claims NEXRAD installations contain military-operated 'weather weapons' that are 'poisoning the skies.' The group has not detailed how it intends to target the sites, but its founder, Michael 'Lewis Arthur' Meyer, publicly posted a response to the Washington Post on the messaging app Telegram. FAA, Duffy face grilling over safety, delays at major US airports Meyer said the group plans to 'take as many NexRads offline as possible.' He added that he has 'full authority' to do so. In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the NWS, issued an internal warning advising employees to stay vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to law enforcement. 'NOAA is aware of recent threats against NEXRAD weather radar sites and is working with other authorities in monitoring the situation closely,' a spokesperson told NewsNation. The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified Veterans on Patrol as an anti-government militia. The group has claimed it is watching radar sites in several states and is allegedly exploring ways to disable the equipment. These developments come at a challenging time for the National Weather Service, which has been operating under severe staffing shortages. Roughly one-third of its positions remain unfilled following a wave of layoffs initiated by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Engadget
07-05-2025
- Engadget
NOAA warns staff a militia group thinks its radars are 'weather weapons'
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned the National Weather Service of possible attacks from an armed conspiracy group targeting Doppler radar stations, according to a report from CNN . The group, Veterans on Patrol, is going after government radars because it believes they're being used as "weather weapons." CNN learned of the possible attacks through NOAA emails warning NWS staff that Veterans on Patrol was planning to conduct "penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses," with the ultimate goal of destroying NEXRAD. Despite its cooler-than-average name, the NWS uses NEXRAD or "Next Generation Weather Radar" for a fairly mundane purpose: detecting precipitation in the atmosphere. NEXRAD plays a vital role in locating thunderstorms and tornados, making it easier to evacuate vulnerable communities before disaster strikes. It's not clear what Veterans on Patrol sees as threatening about radar — the group was previously focused on white nationalism and Pizzagate-style government conspiracies — but concern over the effects of being exposed to radio waves is a common bugbear for conspiracy-types. For example, groups set fire to cell towers early in the COVID-19 pandemic because of a belief that 5G somehow spread the virus. Viewing radar as a weapon could originate from some similar misconceptions. NWS staff have been advised to use the buddy system when working at remote radar sites and report anything suspicious to the authorities. Even without the threat of physical violence, though, the NWS and NOAA at large have already been devastated in 2025. Hundreds of weather forecasters were fired because of the cuts made by the Trump administration, just one of many attempts to dismantle government services.
Miami Herald
07-05-2025
- Climate
- Miami Herald
Homegrown militia plot to destroy life-saving weather radar across US, feds warn
National Homegrown militia plot to destroy life-saving weather radar across US, feds warn NEXRAD, which stands for Next Generation Weather Radar, has been in use for more than 30 years and helps experts track and predict weather. Getty/iStockphoto A homegrown militia group is planning to attack and destroy weather tracking radar systems across the country, claiming the life-saving installations are secretly weapons created by the government, according to officials. Staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were recently warned that a far-right group, Veterans on Patrol, has put NEXRAD radar installations in its crosshairs, according to emails obtained by CNN. 'This group is advocating for anyone and everyone to join them in conducting penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses which can be used to ultimately destroy the sites,' the email stated, according to CNN. NOAA told members of its security to be ready for anything, and not to travel alone. 'Out of an abundance of caution, we are asking all regions to notify their field offices and radar technicians to maintain increased vigilance when at or near radar sites,' NOAA said in a May 1 memo, according to The Washington Post. 'Do not engage with anyone suspicious; instead, notify local law enforcement,' an email read, per CNN. NEXRAD, or Next Generation Weather Radar, has been in use for more than 30 years, and there are 160 of them throughout the country, according to NOAA. 'The NEXRAD system detects precipitation and wind, and its data can be processed to map precipitation patterns and movement,' which allow experts to more quickly and accurately predict severe weather and issue warnings that can save lives. However, Veterans on Patrol 'referred to the NEXRAD system towers as 'weather weapons,' and claimed there were no laws preventing American citizens from destroying the 'weapons,'' an email read, CNN reported. It's unclear how Veterans on Patrol plans to destroy the radars, but group founder Lewis Meyer told The Washington Post that they are training. 'We intend to take as many NEXRADs offline as possible once our attack simulations have prepared us,' Meyer said, adding that preparations would last until at least June. The group is pushing members to test NEXRAD sites to determine how tough they are to infiltrate and attack, and claims it already has followers gathering information in Oklahoma and Washington, the outlet reported. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Veterans on Patrol as an anti-government militia and its founder, Meyer, as 'a Christian nationalist who rallies hard-right extremists and conspiracy theorists … and encourages vigilantism.' The group garnered attention in November with claims that Hurricane Helene, which devastated North Carolina, was caused by a government-controlled weather weapon, The Guardian reported. MW Mitchell Willetts The State Go to X Go to Facebook Email this person Mitchell Willetts is a real-time news reporter covering the central U.S. for McClatchy. He is a University of Oklahoma graduate and outdoors enthusiast living in Texas.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
New weather radar will provide quicker, detailed storm tracking
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Doppler radar is vital to know what lurks in the clouds, and new technology is coming that will give us an even better view into the sky. Our eyes only tell us so much about the weather. Meteorologists need X-ray vision to get the bigger picture, and they have Doppler radar to accomplish that. 'It's actually one of the most significant tools that we use. We use the radar, really, to assess what's happening in the near term here in our environment,' Ken Cook, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Wichita, said. 'We use it in many ways. Specifically, the biggest one is with severe storms. We're looking at: Is the storm tornadic? Is it producing hail?' Hesston tornado: 35 years later, memories of storm still vivid Currently, 160 radar sites across the United States are constantly scanning the skies. This system is called the Next Generation Weather Radar or NEXRAD. Since the system was implemented in the 1990s, it has increased the warning time to get folks to shelter. Upgrades to these radars have kept them up to date with new tools like dual-polarization data, which tells the difference between rain, snow, and even tornado debris. NEXRAD is invaluable, but it is becoming outdated. New radar technology is under development that will address some of the current system's shortcomings, most importantly, how quickly the radar scans. Traditional radars use a dish that spins and tilts at various angles with each scan. The whole process of gathering data at all levels can take five minutes or longer. The future is Phased Array Radar (PAR). 'It just looks like a flat wall, but it's an array of antenna elements, and so the way it works is that we have these thousands of little antennas and these little antennas each transmit a different signal,' Dr. David Schvartzman, assistant professor at the OU Advanced Radar Research Center, said. The antennas are timed down to the microsecond to fire in precise patterns. The waves from those antennas interlock with each other in phase, hence the name. 'We can steer the beam and scan different directions electronically, without any movement of the antenna. And so if we have two storms … and there is nothing in between, we can just scan this one and scan the other one, and we don't waste any time scanning in between,' Schvartzman said. Phased array radar is lightning fast, literally. A scan of the entire sky can be done in 30 seconds. Targeted scans are even faster, nearly instantaneous. This is quick enough to analyze individual lightning flashes. Higher-resolution data like this will save lives. With the current radar setup, a tornado can quickly form, do damage, and dissipate all within the time it takes the current system to complete a single scan. 'The lowest levels of the atmosphere is where a lot of the action happens. With tornadoes and tornadogenesis, is the tornado forming near the ground and going upward or in the cloud and coming downward? There's scientific arguments for how a tornado actually forms. Maybe resolving some of those things,' Cook said. Swift action in severe weather can save lives: Be prepared It will be some time before a wide-reaching network of phased array radars can be deployed for operational use. Current rollout estimates are for sometime in the 2030s. We look forward to having more power to stay ahead of the storm. Severe Weather Preparedness Week runs from March 3 to 7. During this time, KSN's Storm Track 3 Weather Team will discuss severe weather safety topics daily on air and online. Before the first storm strikes your hometown, download the free KSN Storm Track 3 weather app. All information comes from KSN's staff of meteorologists who have the instinct and intellect only those trained here in Kansas have available at their fingertips. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
