HN39:
Is there any merit in the BBC claim to have solved (part of) the mystery of AF447, with the theory of an NOAA meteorologist that a small convective cell may have hidden the 'big' one behind it on the Wx radar screen? Wouldn't the crew have avoided the small cell, and thereby the one behind?
In fact, this is not knew to us. We all know that a smaller cell, may hide a bigger one. Sometimes, this smaller cell, may appear to the crew, as not threatening the path we are flying. However, when the radar gets a first cell, and if it appears to be "blocking" the "view", the radar will display a continuous solid band at the further end of that same display, as wider as the shadowed angle, to alert pilots for that possibility.