Radar has become an indispensable tool for weather forecasting and plays a critical role in aviation safety. Simply put, weather radar is the best tool that meteorologists have to predict general precipitation and to develop short-term forecasts of severe weather.
A weather radar display provides a comprehensive picture of the weather in real time. For aviation interests, radar provides a depiction of weather hazards such as thunderstorms in detail unavailable from any other source.
Radar and aviation go way back. The term radar is an acronym derived from radio detection and ranging, the original name of a technology that initially was based on the use of radio waves. Radar was developed to track aircraft in flight and was first widely used during World War II.
During the war, radar operators noticed that their equipment detected not only aircraft but also areas of precipitation. This presented a problem because the display of enemy airplanes could be lost in the “clutter”…
