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Wind Farms Can Be A Headache For Forecasters
Wind farms are causing some headaches for forecasters.
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1 Comments 
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (August 27, 2009)--Wind farms have been blamed for disrupting the lives of birds, bats and, most recently, the land-bound sage grouse, and it turns out the massive spinning blades on towers can appear on Doppler radar as a violent storm or even a tornado.
The Associated Press reported Thursday the phenomenon has affected several National Weather Service radar sites in different parts the country.
Texas, which has more tornadoes than any other state, also has the most wind power capacity.
Problems began to surface about three years ago, and seem to occur where a wind farm is built within about 11 miles of a Doppler site, according to Tim Crum, with the weather service's radar operations center in Norman, Okla.
Software can easily filter out buildings, cell towers and mountain ridges on radar screens.
Yet because weather radar seeks motion to warn of storms, there's no way to filter out the spinning blades.
Latest Comments
Knowing where these wind fans are on the doppler map should correct this problem. I don't see why they cannot be mapped out. If you own wind fans, you should have to submit coordinates for it for multiple purposes...including air travel, bird migratory area, or for weather predictions.
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