Weather Radar Fundamentals


Doppler Velocity Measurements » Large-Scale Wind Interpretation » Maxima in Speed

A plan view of idealized radial velocity.  Colors to the left of the radar are blue and green, while colors to the right are red and yellow.  A line of gray, indicating velocities of zero, bisects the radar area and passes through the radar location. Closed isodops exist within both halves of the radar image.

Wind speed generally tends to increase with height, but may not do so evenly. Sometimes, the polar jet stream will be sampled by radar, especially in winter, and low-level jets are routinely observed. In this idealized radial velocity image, the radial velocities show a maxima at the first range ring and above that wind speeds begin to decrease. This type of phenomena will typically show up on radial velocity images as two bull's-eyes that have closed isodops in some portion of the image.