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STRIKE FINDER
Precipitation Rate Table
As a water detector, radar displays up to four precipitation levels.Three color
radars are most prevalent: Green-Yellow-Red. The water value and hazard
expectation of each level is shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Precipitation Levels
Radar Advantages
Although radar only measures water, it can still be a very useful tool to
determine the conditions that lie ahead. For example, if you wish to
descend for low level flight or attempt to land, you could use radar to
measure the amount of moisture that might be present in low stratus
clouds. If cold conditions exist at the loft area of these clouds, the rain could
freeze and cause icing. In this case you would choose to circumnavigate
the rain mass.
Radar Disadvantages
The most obvious shortfall of radar systems is their inability to measure
lightning. Remember, all thunderstorms emit lightning. A force that could
be catastrophic to any aircraft.
For example, the Cumulus stage of a thunderstorm is usually rain free and
therefore will not appear on weather radar. However, it generally contains
lightning which will appear on the Strike Finder display screen, alerting the
pilot to its severity and location.
Other inferior features of weather radar compared with Strike Finder are:
range, field of view, detection, sensitivity to storm severity and sensitivity
to storm height, (see Table 4 ,p.50, for additional information about the
system capabilities of Strike Finder and weather radar.)
PILOT'S
GUIDE
DIGITAL WEATHER AVOIDANCE
49
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