The ability of radar to figure out wind speed and the size of objects in the atmosphere makes it possible for meteorologists to detect tornadoes, and even estimate their intensity, in real time.
in the United States bounce off airborne objects, returning to sensors that can infer their speed and size. These Doppler radars are the primary sensors among additional smaller-scale radars across the country, giving the United States by far the most weather radar capability in the world.Because most of the bodies in the atmosphere are water in some form — rain, snow, sleet, hail, etc. — radar is useful for detecting precipitation.
Not all hook echoes will look so clean. Sometimes, the hook is embedded in a line of storms or is barely visible under a huge supercell. Sometimes — especially in the Mid-South — there is persistent indentation or notch in the larger cell. Other times, a storm is too far away from radar for the hook to be clearly evident.A hook echo tells meteorologists that a storm is structured in such a way that a tornado may be imminent.
It’s important to note that in many instances, the velocity couplet is an indicator of parent rotation within the supercell. This larger vortex is termed the mesocyclone, and it coincides with the storm’s updraft. Not all mesocyclones generate tornadoes, and when a tornado forms, it is generally a much smaller, intense vortex contained within the larger mesocyclone. Depending on how close the radar is to the supercell, the “tornado vortex signature” as it is called, may not be resolved.