A curious cloud above the Tri-State on Monday had meteorologists and military experts captivated. It looked like a severe storm, but everyone knows it never rained.
Radar said something was up there… But what?
Eyewitness News Chief Meteorologist Wayne Hart says radar can sense things in the atmosphere other than storms. “We can see birds, insects, even bats sometimes,” said Hart.
But Monday’s mystery cloud looked “too concentrated for that,” Hart said.
According to the National Weather Service, the radar return was between 5,000 and 10,000 feet above the ground. Storm clouds typically touch 40,000 feet.
Meteorologist Chris Noles was studying the radar at the National Weather Service in Paducah. He says people were talking on social media while it was flying overhead.
“A lot of speculation, was it birds?” Noles questioned. “When I saw it, I thought there was a fire.”
Noles says intense heat from a fire can ping radars, but typically it dissipates and doesn’t carry across counties.
He and other meteorologists were asking for help to identify what was happening in the sky. “We knew it wasn't precipitation,” Hart said.
“We could tell it was non-meteorological, and that it was very highly reflective,” added Noles. It didn’t take the National Weather Service long to identify the echo as chaff.
