Strange 'S'-shaped radar phenomenon appears off W[estern]A[ustralia] coast

ABC ^ | Thu 13 Feb 2014, 8:15pm AEDT

[BenLurkin]

The shape was spotted on the weather bureau's radar map on Wednesday about 30 kilometres west of Rottnest.

After checking the satellite, the bureau's Neil Bennett ruled out the phenomenon being caused by cloud.

"There's no cloud, there's nothing to produce a rain echo, ... which we do see a lot, but not this particular shape," he said.

"They don't take on S shapes and things like that.

[Salamander]

Kinda like freaky fertilizer?

;]

[Darksheare]

Look on his face says, “I’m heading WHERE?!”

[Flick Lives]

“Give me an ‘S’”!

[Drango]

RUN!!!!!!!!!!!

[Salamander]

I think he looks zombified, myself.

[now there’s a sequel I’d watch]

[Darksheare]

I just had an entire trailer for “Zombie Snake” run through my head.
Sadly, this phone is incapable of letting me type it out rationally.

[Darksheare]

“Go forth in the knowledge that there are horrid mind melty things out there! You are most welcome! Bwah-hah-hah-haaa!”

[enduserindy]

I had to save that pic, awesome.

[enduserindy]

I’d have to see a loop. Given the location I’d bet there was an imaging loop too. I see know reference to how long it was there and if it moved. Outside of those I’d say hardware issue.

[fso301]

Looks like a software glitch

[Dallas59]

[Pajamajan]

"Snek!!!"

Dat aint jus any ole Snek-Dat's a "We're-gonna-need-a-bigger-boat" Snek!

[21twelve]

Seahawks!

[Gaffer]

The weather radar is probably a less sophisticated variety RF wise wrt to waveforms, with a digital back end for processing etc. The article didn’t say whether it had Doppler, or what polarization or frequency diversity capability it has or doesn’t.

I’d rule out environmental effects if this was a persistent trace, probably birds too since that’s an odd flight pattern not normally seen. The article didn’t say whether this was stationary or not.

My guess is EW spoofing, likely not too much of a difficult job since the radar is stationary. Maybe by a Naval vessel, aircraft or even a land-based emitter trying out some of their techniques.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“It’s a sine!”

Very good AAC!

[Flick Lives]

That’s it! It fits! It’s off the coast of Seattle.

[Flick Lives]

Oops! I saw the WA and thought it saw Washington state.

[Nonsense Unlimited]

A plane doing some cloud seeding?

[Dr. Ursus]

Al Roker said it started out as a B!

[Larry Lucido]

Planely, I’m “inclined” toward skepticism.