Forecasting Extreme Weather Conditions - Essay Example

The main objective for improving forecasting technology, especially radar systems, is to provide residents with timely information, for instance at least an hour’s warning in case of severe tornadoes, so as to give them a considerable amount of time to gather their family and important documents/collectibles and seek shelter at a safe and secure place.   

Describe how a radar works and which radar is currently used by the National Weather Service.

Radars are mechanical devices that work by sending and receiving signals which are further used to analyze weather conditions. Coming to the technical side of the issue, radars work by sending out radio waves which then reflect off minor atmospheric particles such as raindrops, ice, and dust amongst others. When the waves sent off to these particles come back or return to the mechanical device, the data is used to measure the strength and time period of these waves to determine whatever weather-based characteristics they may portray, such as location-based precipitation (Lubchenco & Hayes, 2012).

Currently, the National Weather Service is using a Doppler-based radar. This radar is also capable of measuring the frequency of the waves, which can be decoded to information about the velocity and direction at which precipitation in the atmosphere is moving.

What are some faults in the Doppler Radar? 

Even though the Doppler Radar is a sophisticated device that is used by many weather forecasters all over the globe, the device is far from perfect. The major setback associated with the Doppler Radar is the fact that it doesn’t tell meteorologists anything about the shape of the particle from which the waves retract, which leaves them open to guesswork to determine whether such a particle was a raindrop or a piece of snowfall, therefore making them unable to make detailed analysis out of the information that comes out of it.

What is achieved by the dual-polarization upgrade?

Dual polarization enables forecasters to differentiate with a significant amount of confidence between the types of participation found in particles and their amount, something which the Doppler Radar majorly lacked at. Dual polarization, in very simple words, enables forecasters to comprehend whether the particle that a radio wave retracted back from to the Radar was a raindrop or a dust particle (Lubchenco & Hayes, 2012).

According to the article, what are they hoping to achieve by 2021?

According to the article, meteorologists are hoping that by 2021 they would be able to increase the amount of time before weather warnings are issued owing to sophisticated radar systems coupled with enhanced modeling techniques they would have by them. This consequently would enable families and residents to save their lives and take better precautionary measures.

Part 2: Recent Forecasting Fail

Why, according to the article, was it difficult to give an advance warning for this Tornado in Ohio?

There are many factors that need to be put together when issuing a storm warning. To cut it short, there were many factors due to which it was difficult in the case of Brunswick Tornado to give an advanced warning to the public at large. Such factors include, but are not limited to gaps in radar coverage – which leaves a possibility of weather conditions being developed in areas not picked up by the radar, nighttime tornadoes – when often at night times whether the staff is unavailable, the geometry of beams coming out from the radar in a direction that is away from the surface with a significant distance amongst various other reasons (Erdman, 2014).

It can also be said that Brunswick Tornado was a complex case even for any experienced weather forecaster, and in this case, the situation was coupled with the radar failing to give proper on-time information that would have enabled any action indicative of a riding tornado to be spotted.