NWS Radar Base Reflectivity 4-Panel

Excessive Rainfall in the Southern Plains, Ozarks, and Upper Midwest Thursday

Heavy thunderstorms will continue areas of excessive rainfall and locally considerable flooding over parts of the southern Plains into the mid-Mississippi River Valley through Friday. Heavy to excessive rainfall may bring flash and urban flooding, along with isolated riverine flooding to a part of the Upper Midwest Thursday. Read More >

NWS Doppler Radar (WSR-88D) Example Products

A 4-panel of base reflectivity data at 4 different elevation angles from the KLVX WSR-88D Doppler Radar. Reflectivity shows where and how hard it is raining or snowing, as well as precipitation intensity trends and movement. Blue and green colors represent light-to-moderate rainfall. Yellow and orange colors show moderate-to-heavy precipitation, while red is very heavy rainfall and pink colors inside the red color represent hail of different sizes.

At left is a close-up of a devastating supercell thunderstorm over south-central Indiana on March 2, 2012. The storm produced an EF-4 tornado in parts of Washington and Clark counties. In the upper left panel, a classic supercell is shown at 0.5 degree elevation, with very heavy rain and hail in the storm's core, and a hook echo and "debris ball" on the southwest side of the storm in northwest Clark County. A tornado was on the ground at this time. Higher up in the storm, a "bounded weak echo region" (BWER), or small area of lower reflectivity values inside (surrounded by) an area of higher reflectivity is shown in the bottom 2 panels. This represents the location of the rotating updraft, i.e., mesocyclone in the supercell. Four-panel displays help meteorologists analyze the vertical structure of thunderstorms.