Storm chasing is an exciting yet dangerous activity. Whether you’re a professional TV meteorologist or want to do an adventure, choosing radar for storm chasing is essential.
It helps detect the size, duration, direction, and speed of the storm to avoid unwanted problems. After evaluating weather patterns before moving out of your home, the next step is to get a storm-chasing radar with the following characteristics.
Highest Resolution Radar
Radar should have enhanced range and angular resolution for storm chasing. Because high-resolution radars generate interactive imaging and animation, it’s easy for a storm chaser to visualize data and differentiate between minor details of an image.
Mostly, radars reveal past, current, and future storms’ information through charts, graphs, and video content.
Moreover, you can see the weather condition of half an hour ago by playing back 30 minutes. These videos are the result of radar data for storm chasing from different weather radar stations.
Customizable Full-Screen Radar Map
A customized radar map reveals data for a specific weather condition. For example, you can customize your radar map with tropical data and information on earthquakes and surface levels as well as winds of jetstream levels.
Furthermore, you can set a radius for which you want to receive storm alerts.
Similarly, some radars for storm chasing show location-based searchable data by name.
Radar with Latest Alerts of Storms
Some radar apps like Storm Shield provide the latest weather alerts based on your exact location. Such radars tell about precipitation, heat index, UV index, and lightning alerts via text or push notifications.
For example, this feature is helpful for you if you’re a bike rider or want to go hiking. The lighting alerts tell you about the first light and last light, so you know when the night will fall and plan your trip accordingly.
Complex/Technical Data Visualization
A radar best for storm chasing should have the ability of rotation detection, hail size detection, and multi-device activation alongside weather forecasting capabilities and local and global maps. Radar color also depicts which area has strong winds and which one has moderate hail levels.
For instance, a red spot shows the chances of heavy rainfall, and green color demonstrates light rain.
Likewise, a zoom-in and zoom-out option without losing the resolution of the imagery can help find details of the exact area where it’s going to storm.
Accurate Weather Reports and Hyperlocal Forecasting
No storm-chasing radar gives 100% accurate information because the weather is constantly changing during a storm. Conversely, a detailed and thorough weather condition report, humidity level, and winds speeds can save you a lot of trouble along the way.
Hyperlocal forecasting is an AI solution that gives a detailed account of exact weather conditions in your GPS location. The results of such radars are according to localized data. So, it can detect when and where a thunderstorm or hurricane is going to happen.
Family Sharing Setup Radars
When going for a trip with the family, you surely do not want to take risks for their safety. For this reason, the Dark Sky weather radar app has a family-sharing setup. You can enable it to see if there is any storm in the location where your other family members are.
On top of it, some radar apps and websites show whether these storms will cause pain and allergies or not.
RadarScope, the Best Radar for Storm Chasing
Out of many, RadarScope is the best radar so far. Many professional meteorologists, news reporters, and even pilots use it for storm chasing. It provides information about reflectivity and dual-polarization from any NEXRAD site, a network of around 160 sites that operate in the U.S. and selected global locations.
To summarize, you will find plenty of storm-chasing radar apps and websites, each with its different features; the choice is yours. In the end, choose radar according to your location, everyday weather conditions, and its robust functionalities before you start running errands.