The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) National Weather Service is responsible for monitoring the weather throughout the country. They track weather and climate trends as well as current conditions. There are a series of NOAA weather radars that help them do their job.

NOAA weather radars use NEXRAD or Next Generation Radar to gather data that will help us understand current and future weather conditions. There are four types of images that come about because of this technology. These are base reflectivity, composite reflectivity, one-hour precipitation and storm total precipitation.

Base reflectivity measures the strength of the signal that is reflected back to the antennae. From this, you can spot any precipitation, understand and measure a storms makeup, establish whether or not a hailstorm is possible and better understand the atmosphere. Composite reflectivity is often compared with base reflectivity. This helps us understand a given storms general makeup and its strength. One-hour precipitation reports help establish rainfall amount and assess any flash food warnings. Storm-total precipitation is an image that represents how much rainfall or precipitation is determined for a storm.

The National Weather Service has a very comprehensive website that will help you learn more about the NOAA weather radars. The radar images on their site are updated every thirty minutes. The different colors that are visible on the image represent rainfall rates. Since there is such a variety of colors, you will have to find a chart either online or in a textbook that can help you.

The role of the NOAA National Weather Service is to help predict the weather and warn us of any danger such as hurricanes or flash floods. Through the use of the various NOAA weather radars, we are able to stay informed about current and future weather conditions.