Two commonly used methods to gather information about the weather are radar and satellites. Weather radar uses microwave pulses to scan the air in a certain area, and discern characteristics about it, things such as wind speed, cloud cover, amount of precipitation, and other things. It does this by listening for the echoes of the microwave pulses, and creates and image according to how much reflected, and were it was reflected from that can then be interpreted by a person or a machine, it can also tell how fast things are moving by the phase shift recorded, essentially the microwaves come back a different color if they bounce of of moving object and the size of the phase shift allows the speed of the object to be calculated. The image to the top left is an animated pulse doppler radar image of a hurricane, the colors represent the speed of the clouds. Radar systems can be used to measure a surprising number of things, but most surprising to me is that they can be used to generate a fairly accurate estimations of the total volume of precipitation that has fallen.
Weather satellites also provide a lot of information, they take high resolution images of the earth in the visual and infrared light ranges, these photos and videos are extremely helpful in weather forecasting, but most importantly, they help to identify other weather events that are hard to predict or detect with radar, things like wild fires, smog and pollution and large dust storms with very fine particles. These satellites are also useful for a variety of non weather related things, things like advising astronomers about light pollution, and keeping tabs on populations growth in cities. While they are not particularly useful for specific forecasts, they help to solidify the big picture created by our weather network, and see things that other methods of observation cannot. To the left is an image of a hurricane from a weather satellite.
Two commonly used methods to gather information about the weather are radar and satellites. Weather radar uses microwave pulses to scan the air in a certain area, and discern characteristics about it, things such as wind speed, cloud cover, amount of precipitation, and other things. It does this by listening for the echoes of the microwave pulses, and creates and image according to how much reflected, and were it was reflected from that can then be interpreted by a person or a machine, it can also tell how fast things are moving by the phase shift recorded, essentially the microwaves come back a different color if they bounce of of moving object and the size of the phase shift allows the speed of the object to be calculated. The image to the top left is an animated pulse doppler radar image of a hurricane, the colors represent the speed of the clouds. Radar systems can be used to measure a surprising number of things, but most surprising to me is that they can be used to generate a fairly accurate estimations of the total volume of precipitation that has fallen.
Weather satellites also provide a lot of information, they take high resolution images of the earth in the visual and infrared light ranges, these photos and videos are extremely helpful in weather forecasting, but most importantly, they help to identify other weather events that are hard to predict or detect with radar, things like wild fires, smog and pollution and large dust storms with very fine particles. These satellites are also useful for a variety of non weather related things, things like advising astronomers about light pollution, and keeping tabs on populations growth in cities. While they are not particularly useful for specific forecasts, they help to solidify the big picture created by our weather network, and see things that other methods of observation cannot. To the left is an image of a hurricane from a weather satellite.
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