Meteor shower caught on weather radar ?

This is a screen capture taken at 8:45pm EDT on May 16, 2007 of the radar loop at the College of Dupage Meteorology site (http://weather.cod.edu/analysis/loops/radloop.master.pl?Southeast)
The loop covers one hour of satellite data at approximately 5 minute intervals. In the loop you can see what appear to be intermittent streaks traveling in a northwesterly direction. Is this a meteor shower caught on radar, or something else entirely?


This clip captures the radar loop three times, then is slowed to about 10% normal speed so I could mark onscreen where the streaks occur, followed by another regular loop clip. I adjusted the brightness to help contrast the streaks against the background.

What are these streaks?

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• radar
• anomaly
• weather
• satellite
• meteor

[danwhnt]

Indeed they are sun spikes. i see them everyday at sunset on radar. You can tell what time of year it is from the direction. They appear due west on the equinoxes.

Dan Satterfield

Chief Meteor.

WHNT

Huntsville AL

[23rubiks]

"?WUT ON EARTH WAS THAT?!?!?"

I think you mean "above"

[iroxsmelly]

@Jxrred fucking troll.

[99djc88]

If this is morning radar they look exactly like sunrise spikes - the direction these come from perfectly match what I quite a bit in the morning on wx radar

[TheTornadoChaser]

They are sun spikes. Our weather radars can see the sun set and sun rise which is when the spikes happen. The reason they occur is because the sun gives off readable radiation. When the sun is aligned with the radar's antenna it floods it with the same microwave radiation that the radar signal is. This jams the radar and fools it into seeing a long streak. As the seasons change the direction the streak points will change with relation to the suns position. These streaks are a daily occurrence.

[Jxrred]

@W7ENK fucking nerd.

[djtorule]

I was about to quit watching when I thought it was the mouse cursor you were talking about. Glad I watched on though, pretty neat seeing sun spikes travel west.

[W7ENK]

They're called Sun spikes.

The Sun is basically a gian ball of energy across the entire specrum; visible (light), heat, and RF. When the Sun is at the horizon, the radar will "see" it at whatever frequency range the radar operates at, thus displaying these spikes.

Lightning will sometimes produce the same effect if it strikes while the beam is pointed in its direction.

[Xmar4]

hm.. that's kinda cool.. keep in mind it could be a glitch or something in the radar system... or maybe it's edited.. or maybe it's real.. doesn't matter still pretty cool