Reflectivity
Radar
Latest
Rain, snow and hail across the country now, from every radar in the national network, a new picture every five minutes.
1070 dBZ
Storm analysis / What is falling
Rain or snow, live precipitation type
Over RAIN GAGE NEAR CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Illinois, where the map opens. The whole country
What is falling at each place: rain, cold rain, snow, showers and storms, or rain with hail, every ten minutes. How to read it.
The rings are the storms the radars detect, the larger ring a severe one; each line runs to where its storm will be in an hour if it keeps its present speed and heading. Rotation and hail are what the radars detect and the analysis measures, not warnings: the official watches and warnings in force are drawn on the map in their own colours and set out in full under Alerts.
What the rain or snow map shows
What is falling at each place, as the radars and the air around them tell it: rain, cold rain falling through air near freezing, snow, the heavy showers and storms of a convective cloud, or rain with hail. Each place is drawn as one kind, never a blend.
How to read it
- Rain
- Steady rain.
- Cold rain
- Rain falling through air near freezing; it can freeze on roads and trees.
- Snow
- Snow.
- Storms
- Heavy showers and thunderstorms.
- Hail
- Rain with hail.
What it is for
- See where rain turns to snow along a winter storm.
- Find the cold rain that can glaze roads.
- Tell steady rain from storms and hail at a glance.
How it is made
The storm analysis joins every radar in the national network every two minutes into one picture of the country on a grid about two thirds of a mile across, cleaned of ground clutter, birds and insects, and measures from it what no single radar shows: the largest hail, the turning of the wind, how high a storm’s heavy echo reaches above the freezing level, and what is falling, read with the temperature of the air. Storm Station keeps it every ten minutes for a day, the gauged rain and the radars’ view each hour, and draws it at every zoom from the analysis’s own grid.
A frame every 10 minutes, played as a loop of 1 to 24 hours. As data: /radar/now.json?show=ptype, the times of its frames.
In the Field Book
- BlizzardFB-EVT-081
- Ice stormFB-EVT-084
- ThunderstormFB-EVT-001
Over a state
AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming
With it
Severe AlertsWeather by stateForecast accuracyInstrument atlas
Beside it
Echo near the ground
Lowest echo
Latest
The echo at the lowest height the radars see, every ten minutes: the nearest the radars come to the rain and snow reaching the ground.
1070 dBZ
Falling now
Rain rate
Latest
How hard rain and snow are falling at this moment, in inches of water an hour, a new picture every two minutes.
.014 in an hour