> (b) predictions were worse because data from plane based weather radar was missing
Is plane based radar even used for forecasting? I cant think of what advantage it would have over satellite and ground based radar, with the possible exception of data gathered midocean (where land radar doesn't exist, but there also arent many people).
Sort-of; it's really the TAMDAR [1] system taking measurements of humidity and temperature that are readily assimilated into the global forecast models run by all of the major weather forecast centers (NOAA, UKMO, ECMWF, etc). These observations play a non-trivial role in improving the assimilated initial conditions and boosting forecast quality. Recent work [e.g. 2] has demonstrated that the degradation in availability of aircraft-based observations during the pandemic likely did produce a real, statistically significant decrease in average forecast skill during the afflicted time periods.
Is plane based radar even used for forecasting? I cant think of what advantage it would have over satellite and ground based radar, with the possible exception of data gathered midocean (where land radar doesn't exist, but there also arent many people).