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NEXRAD Anomaly: GROUND CLUTTER
"Ground Clutter" is caused by the radar beam hitting objects near the radar, such as trees,
buildings, insects, and hills. It results in a generally circular arrangement of random
returns within a radius of about 25 miles of the NEXRAD site.
Modern NEXRAD anomaly supression algorithms do a fairly good job at removing most of the
ground clutter; without these algorithms the returns near the radar site would be
overwhelmed with this ground clutter. However, even with the ground clutter removal
algorithms it is not uncommon to see ground clutter which the software was not able
to remove (such as in the example above).
Note that ground clutter is far more common when NEXRAD is in "Clear Air Mode" since in this
mode the radar is much more sensitive and able to pick up faint returns that would otherwise
be ignroed. Hence, ground clutter will often be seen in a radar image that would otherwise
be completely without any radar returns.
Sources:
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