Yep, you can’t go out and install your own radar...unfortunately
, federally controlled and spread out. So there’s only so many to look at so becomes which do you prefer to look at for how often updates & graphics presentation essentially. I like the app RadarScope as it lets me view different channels, if you will, of the radar. I can switch modes and view wind velocity, or see mist/drizzle that traditional apps/website radar pages don’t show, etc. (I do wish it had a better maps layer for city/roads though & wish it had a national radar map just to get a full image instead of only individual radar sites). So I use several radar apps to see what I want to see.
Sometimes you’ll see “ground clutter” on radars where its perfectly dry in region but around radar site for 30-50+ miles all around a radar site may see what looks like scattered rain/drizzle/snow. Its just picking up cranes, cell towers, birds, etc. and no precip actually there. The precip types a radar app/webpage shows (blue for snow, pink mix, green rain) are just programming on where that particular website/app uses to determine where freezing line is and may not be accurate and differ between radar apps & websites as well.
Here in the South (South Carolina) we get virga in winter typically, but can help with snow sometimes here too...so when its lite rain precip over us and dew points are very low so air too dry and evaporates before reaching ground (virga) then it actually creates a process called evaporative cooling which also lowers temps so our rain falling can turn to snow sometimes through this process!
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