Several times a day I check the local NWS radar to see what's brewing in the rainfall department. I like to know in advance what I may be encountering when I go out. Most of the time either there is no rainfall currently in the vicinity or there are large thunderstorms building. But at other times when there are a lot of small light rain cells it looks like the bands are radial to the source of the radar. There will be several small narrow bands over an arc that are the same distance from the radar station. It's probably just the way the radar is presented on the computer screen but it has made me wonder if the radar can induce certain clouds types to drop their load.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Several times a day I check the local NWS radar to see what's brewing in the rainfall...

... the bands are radial to the source of the radar. There will be several small narrow bands over an arc that are the same distance from the radar station. It's probably just the way the radar is presented on the computer screen but it has made me wonder if the radar can induce certain clouds types to drop their load.

Not seeing your specific example, your description for a radar sounds to be typical of:

Interference for that direction;

A nearby obstruction;

Or (unlikely but possible,) a particularly intense rain/hail cell obscuring the view beyond.

All combined by how the data is displayed or visualised.


The radar itself is far far to weak to have any discernible physical effects afar.

At worst, you might very slowly toast the feet of any bird that sat on it for any length of time...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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Weather radar is approximately line-of-sight, meaning it can't see over the horizon.

As the distance from the radar increases, the minimum altitude of detectable objects increases.

Simplistically, it can see low things when they are close but not when they are far away.

That is why it looks like rain is clustered around the radar. It can't see the rain farther away because it is under the line of sight.

I am sure it's just the way the radar 'reads' the precipitation and displays it.

Believe me, if there were any indications that radar could affect or induce precipitation, it would have been fully researched and exploited by now.
Man has long sought any means of controlling the weather, and in particular, rainfall.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster