Radar is an acronym that stands for RAdio Detection And Ranging.
A weather radar consists of a parabolic dish (it looks like a
satellite dish) encased in a protective dome and mounted on a
tower of up to five stories tall. About 150 NEXRAD (NEXt
generation of weather RADar) Doppler radars were installed
throughout the U.S. in the 1990s. The radar itself does not
delineate between rain and snow but AccuWeather's proprietary
algorithms do, based on atmospheric conditions. The state-level
Snow/Ice/Rain (Standard) radar images update every 5 minutes on
AccuWeather.com Premium, which also gives access to longer loops
of radar data. The exclusive AccuWeather.com StormTimer(tm)
plots the expected movement of significant storms over the next
hour, and also gives access to storm details like hail and
rotation. AccuWeather.com RadarPlus offers an interactive
weather experience with street-level radar, satellite and
lightning data, as well as PredictiveRadar which moves the
current radar picture 4 hours into the future.