How Winter Storms Form Types of Winter Storms Winter Precipitation Forecasting With Radar Radar is another helpful tool in monitoring and predicting weather. It is particularly successful in tracking the motion of the precipitation, allowing forecasters to make accurate short-term forecasts on when and where winter storms will strike. It was then modified after the war for meteorological use in the weather community. The physical structure of snow makes it more difficult to track on conventional radar than other types of precipitation.
Snow flakes have lower moisture and higher air content than other types of precipitation.
This quality is physically apparent in the holes found in a snowflake's structure. Extremely light snow can sometimes go undetected on radar. However, the newest generation of Doppler radar is significantly more sensitive than previous generations of radar, and even capable of picking up virga, a situation in which snow is falling from clouds but evaporating before reaching the ground. Forecasters must be careful to combine both surface observations and information from Doppler radar to determine where and at what rate snow is falling. Sleet shows up very well on all radar.