• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Radar Radial Velocity Error

Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
884
Location
New Mexico
Hi all,

While it is usually for stated for nexrad that the velocity error is ~m/s for a spectrum width of 4m/s (correct me if I'm wrong), I've been trying to figure out how to actually determine what the errors for the radar are, especially when it comes to the velocity information.

While doing some digging to try and come up with an answer I found this plot from the Federal Meteorological Handbook.


While this plot is helpful, I've been trying to determine what this plot would look like for different actual velocities(Va on the plot). For instance how does this plot scale or look with a actual velocity of a few m/s or for say 50 m/s. There are some sources listed in the handbook but the few I could find made me a little lost. Also, I have a feeling this plot looks allot different if you take into account that your measurement of the width has an error too.

Also, a m/s for a width of 4m/s is quoted but it seems some from what I've gathered tend to think the error is larger, and that 2-3 m/s error for velocity measurements might more appropriately account for the error...

Some researchers seem to circumvent this and take an rms of the velocity field but I'm trying to avoid doing this.

All in all, I'm basically asking how can the error for a velocity measurement be determined? Is there an equation which is typically involved taking into account width and/or signal strength and/or any other necessary variables? Even if the functions are a minimum or maximum error estimate, this would be great of you to share too.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...
 
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