An interesting article in the local paper this morning. Kudos to the local gannet team for peaking my interest for once.
It seems there is a growing problem with the adoption of wind farms. The mass of spinning blades can interfere with Doppler weather radar. The farms can appear as precipitation in some cases but also block or magnify the perceptions of storm systems behind the wind farm.
“It’s more of an annoyance than a critical issue,” said Bill Hibbert, a meteorologist and radar specialist with the weather service in Buffalo.
But I have to think this is more than just an annoyance in the Midwest where the adoption of wind farms as an alternative energy source is on the rise, and the threat of fast developing tornadoes is serious.
the weather service is trying to update the software to better detect and ignore the effects of the wind farms, and I’m sure they will come up with something soon.
But it’s an interesting thing to watch how different technologies interact and sometime interfere with each other in unanticipated ways.
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