taking their measure - laser light measurement

Four mobile weather units-wheel-
Drive vehicles with satellite antennas to download data from weather centers around the world.
For accurate local predictions, they also have to make their own measurements.
Each unit can be packaged by itself, and a light weather station can be set up in 30 minutes to measure atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity.
In addition, high
Altitude weather measurements are carried out by weather balloons and aircraft reports.
The weather in Iraq in February may cause some special problems, such as sandstorms and local heavy rains.
Normally, the radar is used to detect rainfall, but its beam can be detected. A Lidar (
Light Detection and Ranging)
Perhaps better: it emits much narrower laser pulses than radio waves.