MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com)--The Doppler radar in Millington received dual polarity upgrades in early December. The revolutionary forecasting tool has already improved winter weather forecasting in the Mid-South as well as forecasting for storms with large hail. During Monday’s winter weather, the dual polarity radar was able to clearly pick up the precipitation that was rain, sleet, and which areas were seeing snow.
Tom Salem, National Weather Service Meteorologist, says, “In the future we may be able to say, ‘Hey, in the next hour it's going to change over to snow’.”
Dual polarity sends out horizontal and vertical pulses. The horizontal beam shows the size of each precipitation type within a cloud and the vertical beam shows the shape. Different shapes will tell whether the type of precipitation is rain, sleet, hail, or snow.
The new radar proved helpful during severe weather on January 17th in Northern Mississippi. Analysis of the new data led forecasters to issue a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. Within five minutes, the weather service received a 1.5” hail report.
“The forecaster was really excited because he actually saw the hail in the dual polarization data and issued a warning because of that,” says Salem.
There is still a lot of learn, but the new radar should be able to pick up on rain rates which could help during flooding events later this spring.
