Abstract
This document is Appendix J from the Final Environmental Assessment LEEDCo Project Icebreaker Lake Erie, City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. This document examines NEXRAD weather radar data from Cleveland, Ohio and another radar station in Buffalo, New York for the purpose of assessing nocturnal bird and bat migration above the proposed site of the Icebreaker Wind Energy Facility in Lake Erie, and several comparison areas near Cleveland and Buffalo. The acronym NEXRAD represents “NEXt generation RADar”,a network of approximately 160 Doppler radar stations maintained by the National Weather Service, and designed to monitor precipitation throughout the United States. NEXRAD data are stored and disseminated in two forms–as raw, high resolution Level II data, and as more highly processed, lower resolution Level III data. Level II products include reflectivity (a measure of the density of reflecting targets), radial velocity (the component of velocity either toward or away from the radar unit), and several other products. Most radar ornithological studies published to date have relied on analysis of reflectivity and radial velocity.