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I live in Torrey, and on occasion I hear the meteorologist say that there is a "HOLE" in the radar, and in most cases I think he is referring to our area of the state. What is up with that, and why are we in a hole? We get weather here too, but to date no one seems to be able to forecast it except maybe a farmer drinking coffee at the Texaco. I don't think he has a weather station in his barn anywhere but I could be mistaken. Adus
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Yeah what is up with that huh? Seriously! There's a few reason for donut holes in the radar, lack of coverage or another phenomena called the "cone of silence". Torrey lies on the edges of the Grand Junction radar and one in Cedar City.
As the radar points out from where it's located, the beam goes up. This means the farther away you are from the radar, the beam is pointing even more up! So if the radar is in Salt Lake, it's seeing precipitation closer to the ground, but in Provo, it's seeing precipitation higher up. So even when the radar in Cedar City is trying to see you, it's tilted up, so it's seeing moisture at 10,000 feet! That's way too high! Sure it might see a large thunderstorm but it's not seeing localized stratiform rain which is way below that level.
Other fun things into the mix are beam blockage by terrain in Utah and side lobe contamination, there's a lot of factors that make the radars in Utah very much a pain. If we had more of them it would make a world of difference, but you can't buy one at the store and they cost millions.
Many of the radars in this country are put in strategic places where they can see the rain or snow over populated areas, some of the smaller areas in between get left out which is unfortunate.
Torrey lies in a place on the edges of the radars so often times, we can't see what's happening there. We love ground reports from people in small places so email them to us at weather@ksl.com and that really helps us with the forecast and we can report weather info for your area. The Utah mesonet does have weather sensors there and of course, we can use satellite imagery, but that doesn't solve the radar gap.
You aren't the only place with a radar hole for sure, there are a few places in the US with an extreme lack of data that have plenty of people. For example, the Green Mountains of Central Vermont block the radar from seeing much of the precipitation in the eastern part of that state. Unforuntately, we have millions of people recreating in your area each year but still no coverage. Feel free to write your senator about getting more money for doppler radars.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
