Cell Ownership

There are times that two radars will have views of the same cell. Which one "owns" it? The current algorithm uses MaxR to make that decision; however, this is not a good approach if you have dueling radars continually changing the cell view. It's also not good if a distant radar owns the cell:
  • no view of the bottom half of the cell (the business end of the cell)
  • no view of doppler info
The new algorithm keys on the bottom height of the cell core. Whichever radar sees the lowest part of the cell core - usually the nearest to the radar - is deemed the "owner" and it will generate the cell view. This is not a perfect solution given attenuation issues, the possibility that the nearest radar may not have a good view of storm, or the possibility that the radar in question might need some kind of reflectivity offset.