Recognizing anomalies in weather radar images

The objective of a weather radar is to determine the locations and characteristics of meteorological objects, such as clouds, in the sky. Any echo coming back from a non-meteorological object (mountains, buildings, planes, birds, insects, etc.) is considered as being clutter. The delay between the times of transmission and return indicates the distance of the reflecting object from the radar. The strength of the returned signal is used as an indicator of the weather at that distance. This paper reports on a fast statistical procedure for distinguishing between clutter and signal and on a method for identifying those areas of cloud that have been severely attenuated