A normal radar map shows rain from above. This shows the same radar echoes stacked up in height, so you can see how tall a storm is and where its strongest part sits.
What you're looking at
The flat map is the ground, 150 miles across, centered on your location (the blue dot). Your other locations and the radar site are labeled.
The box is about 59,000 ft tall, with heights marked on one corner. Heights are stretched 4× so storms are easy to see; change it under View and how to read it.
Each shape is echo from rain, hail or snow. The time at the bottom is when the radar finished that scan, usually 5 to 10 minutes ago.
The colors
Brighter and warmer means more water or ice in the air. Faint blue and green is light rain or anvil cloud, and is see-through so you can look inside. Yellow and orange cores are heavy rain. Red, magenta and white mean very heavy rain and usually hail.
Moving around
Turn: drag with one finger or the mouse.
Zoom: pinch, or scroll the mouse wheel.
Slide sideways: drag with two fingers, or right-drag.
Quick views: Tilted, From above and From the south, under View and how to read it.
Play / pause runs the last two hours as a loop. Stop (the square) ends the loop on the newest scan. Drag the time bar to pick a scan.
Cut the storm at: slide it down to slice the storm off at a height and see inside, like cutting a cake.
Show: slide it right to hide lighter rain and leave only the strong cores.
What to look for
Storm top: taller storms are stronger. Summer thunderstorms in the Plains often reach 35,000 to 50,000 ft. A top growing fast from one scan to the next means a strong, building updraft.
High cores = hail: red or magenta (50+ dBZ) reaching above about 20,000 ft is well above the freezing level, where hail grows. The higher and wider that core, the bigger the hail can get.
Leaning or hanging cores: a strong core held up high, with weaker echo under it, is a strong updraft holding rain and hail aloft. When it drops, expect a burst of heavy rain, hail and gusty wind.
Anvil: a wide, flat, faint shelf at the top spreading downwind is the storm's anvil. It shows which way the upper winds blow.
Rain vs. snow: in winter, echoes stay low (below about 10,000 ft) and look flat and even.
Moving: play the loop to see which way storms travel and whether they grow or fade.
Things that can fool you
Far from the radar, the beam is high above the ground, so low rain can be missed and tops look a bit cut off.
Right over the radar there's a gap overhead (the radar can't aim straight up), so storms there can look hollow or chopped.
Rings and speckles near the radar in clear weather can be birds, bugs or ground clutter; most are filtered out.
Heights are stretched. Real storms are much wider than they are tall.
This is for looking, not for safety decisions. For warnings, follow the National Weather Service.
–
Storm top
–
Strongest core
–
LightModerateHeavyHail
View and how to read it
Drag to spin, pinch or scroll to zoom, two fingers or right-drag to pan. Heights are stretched so storms are easy to see; the box is 150 miles across and 59,000 ft tall.
Colors are radar reflectivity, like a normal radar map. Tall red, magenta and white columns are the strongest updrafts, where hail is most likely. The see-through blue and green shell is lighter rain and anvil cloud.