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What Are Echo Tops?

Here's what you need to know about echo tops, including how they're determined and how they compare to cloud tops.

Scott Dennstaedt, Ph.D

Wednesday, August 07, 2024 at 09:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By: tccjeremy

Despite what many pilots are taught, echo tops do not represent the height of the cloud tops. [Credit: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

Echo tops, derived from NEXRAD Doppler radars, represent the mean sea level height of the highest 18 dBZ radar reflectivity within a precipitation core, and are explicitly stated as not being the same as cloud tops.
Cloud tops can be significantly higher (5,000 to 10,000 feet) than echo tops, particularly in intense thunderstorms, making echo tops an unreliable indicator of a cloud's actual vertical extent.
Echo tops are primarily useful for identifying the most significant convective storms and areas of strong updrafts, but they are only relevant for precipitating clouds and are typically not observed below 20,000 feet.

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Question: Are echo tops the same as cloud tops?

Answer: The short answer is no. Echo top height is a volume product that originates from the NWS WSR-88D NEXRAD Doppler radars.

This is the same network of radars that is used to build the familiar radar mosaic pilots readily use in the cockpit. While not provided in the FIS-B broadcast, the echo top height product, however, is arguably the most misused data that is broadcast by SiriusXM to your satellite-based weather receiver.

Scott Dennstaedt, Ph.D

Scott resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, and flies regularly throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S. He is a CFI and former NWS meteorologist. Scott is the author of "The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A Primer for Pilots" and the founder of EZWxBrief.