Weather radars are used all around the world to detect rain, hail and snow, as it happens. However, there are times when the radar network can pick up other things as well. While you generally won't see aeroplanes on our radar images (the radar beam is usually beneath the flight path of most flights, and also our radars are calibrated to primarily pick up smaller objects, whereas radars at airports are calibrated differently to primarily pick up aeroplane-sized objects), there is a myriad of other things that can cause interference on our radar images, which I will explain in this blog.

Red sky at night, Shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, Sailor’s warning. I'm not going to argue about shepherds and sailors; that’s not important here. The questions are: “Is it a useful saying? Does is work? If it works, why?” And, “Why is the sky blue?”