Preface<br > Since the "good old days" when radar was first used to<br >detect storms until now， radar has changed from a research<br >tool used ofily by a few specialists to a tool used by many<br >people on a daily basis. This transformation from an exotic<br >and expensive research tool into a basic source of information<br >for the masses has occurred for several reasons. One is<br >simply the relative proliferation of radars across the country.<br >Another is in the ability to communicate the data from place<br >to place. Still another is that the information provided by<br >radar is simply so useful that it is foolish not to use it for<br >many people.<br > As the field of radar meteorology changed over the<br >years， so， too， has the typical radar meteorologist. Based on<br >photographs from some of the early radar conferences and<br >actual observations of real， live radar meteorologists<br >presenting papers at a number of radar conferences， I have<br >watched the changes that have taken place over the years.<br >Figure 1， first presented at the 22nd Conference on Radar<br >Meteorology at Zurich， Switzerland (Rinehart， 1984)， shows<br >what the well-dressed radar meteorologist looked like over the<br >years. Based on a quantitative analysis (least squares linear<br >regression) on the amount of clothing and facial hair as a<br >function of time， I was able to forecast what the well-dressed<br >radar meteorologist of 2006 AD would look like. This<br >forecast is shown in Fig. 2.<br > There is a vast and rich number of publications in the<br >field of radar meteorology. Much of this literature results<br > vii<br >