National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Tracking Major Hurricane Erin; Hot in the Mid-Mississippi Valley

Major Hurricane Erin is tracking just north of the lower Bahamas today. Dangerous surf and rip current threats increase this week for most of the Atlantic coastline. Erin's outerbands may impact the Outer Banks later this week. Hot to extremely hot temperatures are forecast today and Tuesday from a part of the southern Plains into the central to lower Mississippi River Valley. Read More >

Huntsville, AL

Weather Forecast Office

Dual Pol Radar Information

Weather.gov > Huntsville, AL > Dual Pol Radar Information

Picture of WSR-88D Radome

Dual Polarization (or "dual-pol") technology adds an additional 14 products to the suite of data already available to NWS forecasters. These tools will assist forecasters in the warning and forecast process.

 

Why upgrade to Dual Polarization Radar?

By comparing the power and timing of energy returned to the radar from both horizontal and vertical pulses, we can glean information such as the size, shape, and composition of precipitation particles.

 

What are the Potential Benefits of Dual-Pol?
 
  • Better estimation of total precipitation
  • Better estimation of the size distribution of hydrometeors (precipitation particles)
  • Improved ability to identify areas of heavy rainfall (flash flooding potential)
  • Improved detection and mitigation of non-weather echoes
  • Easier identification of the melting layer (helpful for identifying snow levels in higher terrain)
  • Ability to classify precipitation type
  • New severe thunderstorm signatures

What is polarization?

A radio wave is a set of oscillating electric and magnetic fields, oriented 90 degrees to each other. Polarization of the wave is the direction, or orientation, of the electric field.

Horizontal Polarization

The electric field is oriented horizontally, along the x-axis.

 

Vertical Polarization

The electric field is oriented vertically, along the y-axis.

 

 

 

"Old" NWS Doppler Radar (horizontally-polarized only) versus "Dual Polarized" Radar

The old Doppler radar capability transmits and receives only horizontally polarized radio wave pulses. Therefore, they measure only the horizontal dimension of cloud and precipitation particles. New dual-pol capability will allow the transmit and receipt of both horizontally and vertically polarized radio wave pulses. Therefore, they measure both the horizontal and vertical dimension of cloud and precipitation particles.

 

 

More Information

 
Follow us on X  Follow us on X
Follow us on Facebook  Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on YouTube  Follow us on YouTube
HUN RSS Feed  HUN RSS Feed