Operational Gap-Filling Weather Radar Network for Improved Observations of Weather Hazards Impacting the Nation's Road Infrastructure

Interstate commerce comes to a halt when motorists experience adverse weather resulting in traffic standstills and delays. More importantly, weather can cause unsafe driving conditions resulting in accidents involving injuries and even fatalities. Government agencies and transportation authorities have been rapidly integrating road weather instrumentation and using sophisticated decision-making tools at operations centers to take actions such as alerting motorists, setting up detours, and accelerating response activities such as operating snowplows.

However, vast stretches of major transportation corridors and rural roadways still do not have adequate low-altitude coverage from the government weather radar network. With inadequate low-altitude weather radar observations, forecasters are unable to accurately observe the development of shallow winter storms that lead to pile ups, precipitation events that lead to road washouts, and severe storms that result in downed trees and powerlines.

Climavision is building a network of supplemental weather radars across the United States that will provide coverage over underserved transportation corridors and rural roadways. Twenty-seven new radars are operational across fourteen states as of the writing of this abstract. The network has captured several cases of winter storms, tornadic and rainfall events that were inadequately observed by government weather radars located 70-100 miles away.

Climavision’s radar network plans will be presented showing improved coverage over roadways. Case studies showing radar observations of shallow winter storms in Minnesota and Pennsylvania will be presented along with precipitation events in North Carolina and severe weather in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas.