It is a quiet Monday morning, so what is up with Precision Doppler showing a few returns in northwest Stephenson County and southern Lee and DeKalb Counties? If you didn't know any better, you may just think that those are small thunderstorms based on simply looking at the radar. However, that is not rain falling near Lena or Paw Paw. Rather, those radar echoes are wind turbine farms! Yes, that is correct. Sometimes when things are quiet and there is no rain or clouds around to obstruct the radar's beams, weather radar can pick up on things like birds, bats, insects, or wind turbines.
The reason behind this is because when the radar beam extends out, it can come into contact with a wind turbine if it is in the radar's path. Then, as it rebounds back towards the radar, it shows up as what you would typically deem rain or snow on Precision Doppler. This phenomenon can occur with other non-precipitation items as well if they are in the path of the radar's beam. With windmills, the spinning nature of the blades can even trick the radar into thinking there is rotation in very rare cases. This has happened a few times, including in Kansas several years ago.
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