Abstract. The history of the development of the wind-profiling or MST radar technique is reviewed from its inception in the late 1960s to the present. Extensions of the technique by the development of boundary-layer radars and the radio-acoustic sounding system (RASS) technique to measure temperature are documented. Applications are described briefly, particularly practical applications to weather forecasting, with data from networks of radars, and scientific applications to the study of rapidly varying atmospheric phenomena such as gravity waves and turbulence.

Key words: Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (instruments and techniques) · Radio science (remote sensing; instruments and techniques)