Last weekend someone came up to me with a big grin and said, “So you invented radar, right?” Long pause. Um, no. My team used radar for 3D TV weather graphics (1991) and on flip phones (2001).
Weather radar is a trickle-down technology with military roots. In WWII, radar operators (tracking allied and enemy planes) noticed interference on their screens; smudges that made it difficult to track aircraft. It was rain!
Postwar, surplus military radars were adapted for civilians. The first National Weather Service radar (WSR-1) was an old Navy radar. Today there are 160 “NEXRAD” (WSR-88D) Doppler radars from Alaska to Puerto Rico, which cost taxpayers just over $3 billion. The U.S. has the most extreme weather on Earth. Doppler is not a luxury, but a necessity.
More wind-whipped showers and sprinkles Friday (highs stuck in the 50s) and maybe another shower Saturday afternoon. Sunday still looks like the sunnier, nicer day of the weekend.
A few 80s by mid-month? Ah, September. Jackets and shorts in the same closet.
