Meteorlogists at the National Weather Service, including the Tulsa office, have been adding to their bag of tricks with a new technology called Dual Polarization Radar, or "Dual Pol" for short.

The radar will be installed in Tulsa in September.

The new technology alternates between scanning horizontally and vertically and is so sensitive it can distinguish between a large raindrop and a hailstone.

"Perhaps most importantly, it's going to tell us if we have debris within the radar beam, which can confirm the existence of a tornado," said National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Piltz.

The radar at the Tulsa site will be offline for a couple of weeks while the Dual Pol system is installed, but Piltz says they've got plenty of backup radars from neighboring sites at their disposal to fill in the gaps.