Sweep prominence is how far the peak response of a rotational sweep stands above the sweep's mean, expressed relative to the span between that mean and the sweep floor. It is the basis of the confidence attached to a bearing.
Every sweep produces a peak, including a sweep of a uniform field where the peak is noise. Prominence is what separates a real direction from an artefact, and it is what lets a system say the evidence is weak instead of stating a bearing it cannot support.
Confidence is derived from prominence and bounded between a configured floor and 1.0. A sharp, single-direction peak yields high confidence; a flat sweep yields a low but never zero one.
A cross-draught carrying a plume away from its source produces a broad, skewed sweep. The bearing is still reported, with a confidence low enough to say so, and repeated sweeps reveal the persistent direction over time.
Carried alongside the source coordinate through the twin, the spread forecast and the operator recommendation, so no later stage overstates the precision of the physical measurement underneath it.
