TABLE OF CONTENTS An important parameter to note from Table 6.6 is the beamwidth. At a distance as close as 60 km, the beamwidth of 1.8 would result in a lateral spread of ~2 km of the beam, which is enough to engulf the lateral dimension of many thunderstorm rain shafts entirely. At further ranges, the lateral resolution of the WSR-57 radar would be proportionately worse, becoming almost 15 km at a range of 450 km. This results in poor spatial resolution and enhanced blurring effects. There is clearly a need for better angular resolution of the primary sensor, and the modern weather radars incorporate such an improvement.
Conventional weather radars including the WSR-57 provide a picture of the reflectivity distribution in their fields of view by applying the radar equation to each pixel in their observation fields. However, in analysing and utilising the weather scene depicted by the conventional weather radar for aviation and other purposes, it must be remembered that the raw reflectivity distribution provides only a crude picture of the weather scenario, and further meteorological interpretation is necessary to derive full benefit from such data. Such interpretation utilises, in addition to the reflectivity values, the patterns of distribution of reflectivity, information on the synoptic setting in which each phenomenon occurs, and data from sensors other than the radar. Because of the high level of intelligence and familiarity required for such pattern recognition and interpretation, relative to the level of technology that went...
