A nice overview of radar coverage across the United States is presented in a published paper in Weather and Forecasting by the late Bob Maddox et al. in 2002.  It is linked here.  H/T to Cliff Mass for sharing this article with me.  I'm not a radar meteorologist, but the complexity of the topography in the west sure plays havoc with radar interrogation of storms, as evidenced by their figure 3 (copied below; © American Meteorological Society).  Placement of the radars will matter!

Oregon Coastal Radar Sure Would be Nice!

Ok, I could say that Cliff made me do this; he didn't, but he pushed hard on starting something like this off, and was successful in his efforts in SW Washington to the benefit of our northwest Oregonians too.  This is the first salvo of what I hope will evolve into a massive new effort to improve our ability to detect offshore, near-shore, and onshore hazards associated with strong cyclone events and thunderstorm hazards.  Op-ed published in the Register-Guard yesterday is here.  Let's keep this moving!