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Wind Farms Can Interfere With Doppler Radar
T Murphy writes "Wind farms can appear like storms or tornadoes on Doppler radar when placed too close to the radar. Tornado alley is a good area for wind farms, and good terrain for the turbines is also ideal for Doppler radar. With many new farms being constructed, the problem is growing. A false tornado warning was issued in Kansas by a computer, although canceled by a meteorologist aware of the problem — there are fears that false positives will grow. Worse would be a tornado ignored as a wind turbine. While meteorologists are trying to work with wind farm owners to shut off the turbines during bad weather, they have no control over the placement or operation of the turbines. Efforts are being made to improve detection technology to avoid further problems."
Hmmm.. They take up a LOT of real estate, muck up a perfectly beautiful horizon, require a large amount of huge power lines to be run all over private land, cost more to build and maintain than they produce, wreck havoc with radio/television reception anywhere around them, are loud, produce extremely annoying constant moving shadows, and now are showing to be a threat to to the one thing that helps NOAA try to save a few lives during severe weather? Nice... glad we invested all our tax dollars in those over-sized pieces of junk...