Home | Blog Index | Blog Archives | Christianity & Faith Essays | Storm Chasing Essays
Military chaff echoes on NWS radar
In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field. |
I saw these strange echoes on Charleston's radar (KRLX) this morning that resembled snow bands:
This animation shows the echoes as they moved into southern West Virginia. Satellite imagery, however, showed clear skies at the time, and sure enough, when I looked outside, there was nothing to be seen in the southern sky but a few small cumulus clouds. No contrails or anything of that sort were visible.
A snow band would show up clearly on satellite and visually in person, so what was causing the band echo on radar? It turns out that it was military "chaff", thin strips of aluminum foil dropped from aircraft. The chaff's high radar reflectivity is designed to confuse/jam enemy radar, and consequently it shows up strongly on doppler weather radars.
The Louisville, Kentucky NWS office put together a writeup on a similar event.
|