US Navy's High-Resolution Radar Can See Individual Raindrops In a Storm

coondoggie writes "The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) researchers said recently that a Navy very high-resolution Doppler radar can actually spot individual raindrops in a cloudburst, possibly paving the way for new weather monitoring applications that could better track or monitor weather and severe storms. According to an NRL release, the very high-resolution 'Mid-Course Radar' was used to retrieve information on the internal cloud flow and precipitation structure. The radar was previously used to track small debris shed from the NASA space shuttle missions during launch. 'Similar to the traces left behind on film by sub-atomic particles, researchers observed larger cloud particles leaving well-defined, nearly linear, radar reflectivity "streaks" which could be analyzed to infer their underlying properties,' NRL stated."

useful....

[ushere]

means you can avoid individual rain drops and keep your battleship dry.....

An obvious BOFH bonus

[sunwukong]

"Boss, I'll need some special equipment to see our data in the cloud ..."

Gee whiz

[ozduo]

So instead of gazing at their navel the Navy can gaze at raindrops

How many raindrops are there in a storm?

[evilsofa]

How many raindrops are there in a storm?

Re:...Under what circumstances?

[Hadlock]

Might as well karma whore this myself, because someone else is going to, here's a brilliant quote from HHGTTG:

Rob McKenna had two hundred and thirty-one different types of rain entered in his little book, and he didn't like any of them.
 
Since he had left Denmark the previous afternoon, he had been through types 33 (light pricking drizzle which made the roads slippery), 39 (heavy spotting), 47 to 51 (vertical light drizzle through to sharply slanting light to moderate drizzle freshening), 87 and 88 (two finely distinguished varieties of vertical torrential downpour), 100 (postdownpour squalling, cold), all the sea-storm types between 192 and 213 at once, 123, 124, 126, 127 (mild and intermediate cold gusting, regular and syncopated cab-drumming), 11 (breezy droplets), and now his least favorite of all, 17.

Rain type 17 was a dirty blatter battering against his windshield so hard that it didn't make much odds whether he had his wipers on or off.
 
And as he drove on, the rain clouds dragged down the sky after him for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him.

Re:useful....

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealth aircraft use electrogravity tech to reduce their weight by a significant amount. You are incredibly misinformed.