National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

 The Sioux Falls National Weather Service radar is back up and running.  It had been down for several days with a major upgrade, the installation of Dual Polarization (Dual Pol) technology.  

Benefits of Dual Polarization technology:

• Better estimation of total precipitation amounts
• Better estimation of the size distribution of hydrometeors (raindrops, snowflakes, hailstones, drizzle)
• Much improved ability to identify areas of extremely heavy rainfall that are closely linked with flash floods
• Improved detection and mitigation of non-weather related radar echoes (chaff, smoke plumes, ground clutter)
• Easier identification of the melting layer (helpful for identifying snow levels in higher terrain)
• Improved ability to classify precipitation type

The full benefit of dual-pol radar, however, will not be fully realized until NWS forecasters and research meteorologists develop real-time expertise.