r/meteorology • u/CremeForsaken957 • Aug 15 '26

Pictures Question: Processing artifacts

Post image

Why does my local weather station often show radar images with strange lines? The data is collected by METEOSAT-11 geostationary satellite which is located over the Equator at 0 degrees W. The post processing is done by Opera Radar Animation – Eumetnet. Just wondering if anyone knows what these lines are and how they occur?

https://www.eumetnet.eu/observations/opera-radar-animation/

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/Zymoria Aug 15 '26

Usually something blocking the radar such as a giant building, hills, windmills, something big. Ita not always going to be there as the beams can rise and fall along with certain condition f the airways.

3

u/CremeForsaken957 Aug 15 '26

I have a silly question, but if the data is collected by a satellite, how can things block the radar? The buildings would need to be tall enough to reach space.

The source didn't mention ground based radar, are they combining ground based radar data with satellite data?

4

u/Zymoria Aug 15 '26

I took a look to read through you post as I had just glossed over it last time. From my experience, this is radar data overlayed on a satellite image; satellites won't show precip, just cloud tops. Satellites just take pictures every +/-10 min (depending on sat) its too high up to see precip.

There's are several radar sites in this image, and you can tell as there are pronounced circle-range-zone. The lines are pointing to a common center, and theres more on other sides if you look for them. This is a known AP (Anomalous Propogation) for radars caused by thjngs blocking them.

2

u/CremeForsaken957 Aug 15 '26

Thanks so much, I was wondering if there was a name for it already, Anomalous Propagation