Peering into the Storms with Weather Radars - Past, Present, and Future
Channel: NSF NCAR & UCAR Science Education
Date: 2019-04-04

In this presentation, find out what’s going on inside high-impact and severe storms! NCAR Scientist Wen-Chau Lee is known for peering into these dangerous storms using weather radars. To probe inside the most violent storms on Earth, weather radars have been placed on the ground, mounted on trucks and ships, flown on aircraft and sent into space on satellites. Scientists have devised ways to observe and reveal storm structures in order to advance the knowledge and forecast of high-impact weather events. This has led to improved weather forecasts and public warnings to better protect life and property. In this talk, Lee reviews the history and advancement of weather radars and discusses how internal structures, microphysical characteristics, and rainfall from these storms can be revealed by weather radars.  Learn about what the future might hold for radar observations as a tool for scientific research and weather observations.

Wen-Chau Lee is a Senior Scientist and the Facility Manager of the Remote Sensing Facility/Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) at NCAR. In this capacity, Lee investigates internal airflow structures of high impact weather events using Doppler weather radars, and is the lead scientist for the development of the next generation Airborne Phased Array polarimetric Doppler Radar (APAR) at NCAR.

Learn more about the NCAR Explorer Series: https://edec.ucar.edu/public/ncar-explorer-series