Wind Farm Interference Showing Up on Doppler Radar

[brunota2003]

Really good read (with examples), and something I had never thought about affecting the radar before.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/windfarm.htm

[Dionne]

You would think the operator of the Doppler would recognize the signature of the wind farm in the event of storms in the area.

Assuming everyone read the entire link and the concerns?

[vbhoutex]

You would think the operator of the Doppler would recognize the signature of the wind farm in the event of storms in the area.

Assuming everyone read the entire link and the concerns?

I would think so too, but it sounds like what they have on the radar affects several different calculations that are done with the radar and that is definitely a concern. Past that if they don't recognize the wind farm signature for what it is and misinterpret if as stationary rainfall, then someone is not doing their job of making sure those using the radar know what it is. Best case of course is to locate the farms where they won't interfere, but that can be difficult since they need to be locatied in normally elevated windy areas. Have there been other reports of same elsewhere? I would suspect it could be a problem in areas like the Altamont Pass wind farms in CA.

[wall_cloud]

You would think the operator of the Doppler would recognize the signature of the wind farm in the event of storms in the area.

Assuming everyone read the entire link and the concerns?

The problem isn't the inability to "recongize the signature of the wind farm". The problem is that the reflectivities associated with the wind turbines may mask (or alias) a true meteorological target. The near zero velocities are also known to contaminate the velocity data associated with the storm since all targets in a range bin are averaged. The rainfall estimates are a bigger problem as persistent 25-40 dbz echoes can really add up on the STP. This can contaminate the overall picture and be open to misinterpretation by many untrained eyes. Remember, most of the people that look at a radar are not trained.

A well produced clutter map can help mitigate these issues by helping filter out the persistent data. However, this does not always work given changing atmospheric conditions and sometimes just needs to be "worked around". We have a handfull of these wind farms in our CWA (most within 30 nm of the radar) and it has never negatively impacted a warning decision. The FAA tower for KAMA also produces a useless radial and that has been known to cause issues with storm interrogation for a scan or two. That's not to say it can't happen, but I think the problem is overblown.

MJ

[vbhoutex]

Thanks for adding some clarity and explanation to this topic.