Radar vs Rain, Thunder
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Hello. The weather radar map is very different from the rain, thunder map. I always thought radar = rain. What is the difference between the 2 maps? Thank you!
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The rain map is not very predictive: it shows how much rain fell on a location in the past 3 hours. Interesting, but not much of a help if you want to plan walking the dogs.
The rain radar is a special radar that registers echos from (lots of) raindrops and thus can monitor where rain is in real time. If you look at that picture, and how it moves - well - that does allow you to make some reasonable predictions on when there will be a time window without rain.
In flat countries rain radar is really very useful and accurate; in mountaneous areas the radar, which is usually positioned on a mountain top, cannot 'see' everything, which makes it a bit less reliable there. This is why commercial weather services often fake 'rain radar' with satellite 'estimates'. Not as accurate as direct radar measurements, but mas que nada in any case.
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@BertBril said in Radar vs Rain, Thunder:
The rain map is not very predictive
This is not correct. The “Rain, thunder” layer is a forecast. It is predicted by a weather model updated several hours prior. It is not an observation.
The “Radar” layer is a direct observation and provides the real-time precipitation data. -
@idefix37 Oh wow, my bad. It still doesn't really give you the information you need, but it could sure help.
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@idefix37 Do you find one layer or the other more accurate? The past couple days I would say the Rain, Thunder map is much more accurate, but I only just discovered it, so I don't have long term experience to compare.
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@justinehamilton said in Radar vs Rain, Thunder:
I would say the Rain, Thunder map is much more accurate
Much more accurate compared to what? To the Radar layer?
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@idefix37 Yes - my original question was what is the difference between the Weather Radar layer and the Rain, Thunder layer. They frequently look completely different. I had always looked at the Weather Radar one to see where rain was but recently happened across the Rain, Thunder one and it has appeared to more accurately reflect the presence of rain, at least over the few days since I've been paying attention to it. So I wondered what your experience is.
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@justinehamilton
The Radar layer is much more accurate because it is a real-time observation. Imagine a storm cell moving to you location. The Radar layer shows it.
This is not possible for Rain, thunder because it shows just a high probability that you get rain and stormy weather in the vicinity, but it is not a certainty. However this layer is useful because it predicts the future weather. The Radar cannot do that, even if in Windy an extrapolation for the next hour is provided, it is just an assumption specially in case of convective weather. -
@idefix37 Very helpful, thank you!
