What Is a Doppler Radar?

Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type.

What is a Doppler radar used for?

Doppler radar can see not only the precipitation in a thunderstorm (through its ability to reflect microwave energy, or reflectivity), but motion of the precipitation along the radar beam. In other words, it can measure how fast rain or hail is moving toward or away from the radar.

What is a Doppler radar and how does it work?

Doppler radar is a specific type of radar that uses the Doppler effect to gather velocity data from the particles that are being measured. For example, a Doppler radar transmits a signal that gets reflected off raindrops within a storm.