Fox Live Power Doppler is the newest tool Fox Chicago Meteorologists can use to track severe weather moving through our area.

When tracking Chicago Weather, Fox Live Power Doppler has several advantages compared to traditional doppler weather radar - primarily, it's range, speed, height and dual-polarity technology.

Fox Live Power Doppler operates at 1 million watts of power.  That's important because weaker radar systems will experience a loss of signal strength called attenuation when tracking severe storms.

Fox Live Power Doppler has the highest power level available in the world today.  

Fox Live Power Doppler is mounted on top of a 200' high water tower in the City of Lockport, pictured to the left.

That height decreases the interference known as ground clutter and along with the 1 million watts of power helps Fox Live Power Doppler achieve a range of more than 300 miles.

Severe storms can move very quickly, so it is a huge advantage that Fox Live Power Doppler can rotate at up to 6 revolutions per minute. 

That gives Fox Chicago the ability to give you a new image of heavy rain and dangerous weather every 10 seconds.

Finally, Fox Live Power Doppler features the state-of-the-art dual polarity technology.

Dual polarity radar (also known as polarimetric) is the latest innovation in radar meteorology. 

Fox Live Power Doppler can send out two beams of energy at the same time - one vertically oriented and one horizontally oriented.

This ability allows our radar to give a much more accurate measurement of rain drop size and hail.

The photo to the right is what Live Power Doppler actually looks like.

It's taken inside the dome that is mounted on top of the water tower pictured above.

It's a tight squeeze inside - the dish is over 12' tall - and the orange color you see is sunlight coming through the protective dome around the radar, called a "radome".

You can see some of the electronics are mounted right on the back of the dish, while others are located in a secure room at the bottom of the tower.

Remember, you can see Live Power Doppler online 24/7 here on myFoxChicago.com!