A comparison of thunderstorm reflectivities measured at the VHF and UHF

Observations of thunderstorms made with two radars operating at different wavelengths of 70 cm and 5.67 m are compared. The first set of observations was made with the UHF radar at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and the second set was made with the Max-Planck-Institut fur Aeronomie VHF radar in the Harz Mountains in West Germany. Both sets of observations show large echo strengths in the convective region above the -10 C isothem. At UHF, there appears to be a contribution from both the precipitation echoes and the normal echoes due to scatter from turbulent variations in the refractive index.