How Reliable Is Weather Radar?

Remember when your weather app showed sunshine but rain fell anyway? Or that picnic you canceled because radar showed storms - yet blue skies ruled the day? Weather radar helps track rain and storms, but those colorful maps don't always tell the whole story.

Seeing Through the Clouds

Weather radar dishes dot the landscape, spinning endlessly as they shoot energy pulses skyward. Like sonar finding fish, these beams bounce off raindrops and snowflakes, sending back clues about storms above. Computers paint these echoes into the maps we check obsessively before outdoor plans (1).

Nothing blocks radar beams quite like mountains. While flat states get decent coverage, places like Colorado deal with radar blind spots. Earth's curve causes trouble too - beams meant to catch rain might pass miles above distant storms.