[shade]

One of my weird hobbies is radar chasing storms, and all of that stuff is completely normal. NEXRAD is very sensitive, especially when it's in clear air mode (it has different modes depending on if it's raining in the area) and can pick up things like dust, birds, bats, and insects. There's also ground clutter from things like buildings, wind farms, and even cars.

The National Weather Service has a good brief explainer: https://www.weather.gov/iwx/wsr_88d

They also have an interesting PDF covering some of the more unique signatures you might see, though it's not exhaustive: https://www.weather.gov/media/btv/research/Radar%20Artifacts...

[fprotthetarball]

Does clear air mode pick up wildfire smoke? There has been an awful lot of that lately over the US from Canada and the West Coast.