Dots, dots, lots of dots...

[jab8283]

One of the updates a few months ago began placing lots of black dots in thunderstorms. As there is no descriptor for this item, I assume maybe this represents hail? Here is a pic of todays storm in which these black dots appear. What do they really represent?

[idefix37]

@jab8283
It's possibly hail detected by American radar. I hope this will be clarified soon.
The black dots appear in stormy areas.

[schilpat]

@jab8283 Hi, this is a precipitation type in radar - the same case as snowflakes. For now, we have three categories - snowflakes for snow, no pattern for rain, and black dots for hail. In case you are not interested in displaying pType in radar, you can disable it in settings.

[idefix37]

@schilpat
One question: I do not remember this being explained anywhere. Or have I missed something?
Snow flakes in v48 news, OK, but nothing else.

[idefix37]

@schilpat
I have another question: I know that only North American radars provide data about the precipitation types. Elsewhere, for snow, it is the predicted temperature that allows for the visualization of snowfall.
Regarding hail, will this type of precipitation be displayed outside of North America, or will it simply be absent, which would explain the lack of information?

[d.fridrich.windy]

@idefix37 Outside US regions we use the estimate based on eq. (1) in this article:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280623315_Quality_Assurance_in_the_FMI_Doppler_Weather_Radar_Network
The ECMWF-HREF model data are used as the input in such case.

[idefix37]

@d.fridrich.windy
Thank you, I’ll look into this document.