Serpentine Radar Explained and Comparisons

[nocky]

http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/radar/faq ... dars.shtml

Link explains the benefits of the new radar

[Tom M (Chaser 80)]

ok so im thinking the calibration of the new radar is a little overkill. on the WZ radar, using their colours, i just had yellow overhead, and just maybe picked up 0.2mm. it seems to over estimate the intensity by quite alot. and technically it still should be light rain too, and its not.
T

[nocky]

Don't know Tom, it works fine here, the old one was worthless for us, yellow is moderate so id moderate .2mm in a short time?

[Tim S]

All I see in that explanation is the date on the first set of comparison images, 19th Dec 2009! those bastards lied to me they were just waiting until I left until they put it online. Still at least it prepared me for the Kiwidar, PK the old Perth radar has nothing on what we get here (or don't get). I can get rainfall rates of around 50mm/hr and nothing shows up on the Welly or New Plymouth radars, although I must admit the Kiwidars have something called mountains to content with, not the mole hills they have over there.

Still the population covered by both of my closest radars is probably less than half of Perth's (not including my fluffy neighbours!) so its to be expected.

Oh and did I mention the public only has access to hourly updates of the radar... you don't know how good you have it in Oz. radar wise anyway.

[nocky]

Well you wanted to go
Why didn't the kiwi's put the radars on top of the hills then?

[Fu Manchu]

That's Hulls PK, Hulls.

[Tom M (Chaser 80)]

OK so ill clarify my post earlier. the radar seems alot more accuate with the heavier rainfall, tho over estimates, in my area, lighter rainfall.

[nocky]

Not sure Tom about Perth but I can confirm the settings are spot on for here, Blue and white are meant to be very light to light drizzle, pale yellow is light rain 1mm to 2mm per hour, up to the darkest red which is over 100mm per hour, yesterday during a hour rain we got .3mm which was white on the radar, for the day around 3mm which some were reasonable showers but at best mid blue on the radar which on the old radar possibly would not have shown, because the radar has been crap for so long it is hard to say what is right, I remember around 8 years ago writing to BOM and asking them what they did to the radar as it changed from something like we have now to what we had previous, still waiting for a reply. I think it is a matter of getting use to the new radar and getting use to the colours,

[Fu Manchu]

I noticed yesterday that the radar was showing no rain yet at times we were experiencing quite steady rainfall.
Even allowing for the 10min cycles of it, it just didn't match. Maybe locations are a bit out?