Doppler Radar Detecting Cars!
Sunday, June 17th, 2007An interesting radar phenomena occurred early Sunday morning, when the National Weather Service doppler radar in Romeoville actually detected cars moving quickly along Interstates 80 and 55! Doppler radar measures the speed of motions toward and away from the radar, typically detecting the motions of rain and water droplets, however this wasn’t the case this morning. During the pre-dawn hours a strong temperature inversion developed above the ground, which caused some of the energy from the radar beam to get re-directed toward the ground. In the doppler radar image below small pixels of fast motions toward and away from the radar are being detected up and down I-80 and I-55 southwest of Joliet. This is actually the doppler radar detecting the fast moving vehicles along the interstate! Click on the image to see an enlargement.
Credit: NWS Chicago
