In our first tutorial on Tornado Tracking, we'll get you up to speed on the basic tornado tracking features in Weather Defender, including:

• Tornado Watch & Warning Polygons
• Severe Weather Bulletins
• Wall Clouds & Mesocyclones
• Tornado Vortex Signatures

Radar Series Part 2
Click here to Watch Part 1

In our latest tutorial in the Radar Series, we'll cover the advanced Radar Products that are available in Weather Defender, including:

• Reflectivity Tilts
• Base & Storm-Relative Velocity
• 1-Hour and Storm Total Precipitation
• Echo Tops
• Vertically-Integrated Liquid (VILs)
• and others...

For explanation and usage of each of the radar products discussed in this tutorial, see the Radar Products entry in the Online Documentation.

A new layer based on the Mesocyclone Detection Algorithm (MDA) was released today. Mesocyclones indicate areas of rotation inside a thunderstorm, which can be precursors to Wall Clouds and Tornadoes.

This freely available layer to all registered Weather Defender customers provides the following benefits:

• More accurate and frequent updates concerning rotation inside thunderstorms (precursors to tornadoes)
• Detailed information about the strength, dimension, and movement of each circulation
• Historical and future tracks of the circulation for long-lived mesocyclones

Here's how to add this new layer to your map:

1.   Unlock your map by clicking the padlock icon in the upper-right of the Map Layers window
2.   On the main toolbar, click Map > Add Layer
3.   In the Layer Browser, click the Severe Weather category
4.   Find the layer labeled "Meso (MDA)" and click Add To Map