RadarScope view of a summertime storm southeast of Denver Friday evening....
The app has a little red oval with a number in its upper right corner. When I click on it, up pops a list of current tornado watches (in red), severe thunderstorm watches (in yellow) and flood watches (in green). Clicking on any of the watches changes the view to the applicable radar. The new view shows the outline of the watch area on the (zoomable and pan-able) map.
On Friday, I saw there were tornado and severe thunderstorm watches southeast of Denver in Elbert county. The display showed me some features I like....
(Click to Enlarge)
At the start of the track we see a circle with little arrows... indicating the spinning air of a mesocyclone has been picked up on radar. And when I clicked on it in the Velocity pane we see a Meso Strength score (this a moderate score) and hail size.
As I kept checking I sometimes saw a tornado icon (instead of the mesocyclone icon), indicating a tightening of the spinning in what's called a Tornado Vortex Signature.
(Click to Enlarge)
I don't believe there were sightings of a tornado in the area but I did find this storm-chaser video of hail there in Elbert County on Friday...
https://youtu.be/htWT9JiOAZU?t=84
PS-
The explanations of the icons (the 'attributes') are on this
Weather Ops blog page and include hail (double circle), mesocyclone (circle with arrows), Tornado Vortex Signature (tornado symbol). The Meso Strength scale is also explained (<2300=weak, 2300-3600=moderate, >3600=strong)
PPS- I noticed the
announcement for the latest version of RadarScope says they've added support for another category-- snow-squall warnings (<1/4 mile visibility, freezing ground temps, duration < 1 hour, dangerous or life-threatening conditions). Also- more Canadian radars.
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