Weather Radar for Central Macedonia

Updates every 15 minutes

Scale of dBZ values

dBZ Rain Rate (mm/hr)    (72-80) +++ mm/h) (Extremely Intense Thunderstorm!)    (66-72) 400+ mm/h!) (Very Intense Thunderstorm!)    (60-66) 200-400 mm/h (Intense Thunderstorm)    (54-60) 90-200 mm/h (Thunderstorm)    (48-54) 35-90 mm/h (Very Heavy Rain)    (42-48) 15-35 mm/h (Heavy rain)    (35-42) 5-15 mm/h (Moderate rain)    (24-35) 2-5 mm/h (Light rain)    (12-24) Drizzle (Drizzle)    (-30-12) Noise, Particles (No Rain)

dBZ stands for decibels of Z. It is a meteorological measure of equivalent reflectivity (Z) of a radar signal reflected off a remote object. The reference level for Z, is related to the number of drops per unit volume and the sixth power of drop diameter.

Reflectivity of a cloud is dependent on the number and type of hydrometeors, which includes rain, snow, and hail, and the hydrometeors size. A large number of small hydrometeors will reflect the same as one large hydrometeor. The signal returned to the radar will be equivalent in both situations, so a group of small hydrometeors is virtually indistinguishable from one large hydrometeor on the resulting radar image. 

A meteorologist can determine the difference between one large hydrometeor and a group of small hydrometeors as well as the type of hydrometeor through knowledge of local weather condition contexts. 

Despite the detailed scale above, a more "realistic" approach of rain rate is as follows:

© SOURCE: http://www.3dsa.gr/

Timestamp is UTC/GMT (GR: +2 hours at winter time (November->March), +3 hours at summer time (April->Oct)