13th Conference on Applied Climatology and the 10th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology

Monday, 13 May 2002
3D Multi-radar Reflectivity Mosaic for CIWS Domain
Jian Zhang, CIMMS/Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and J. J. Gourley, W. Xia, and K. Howard
Poster PDF (578.7 kB)
En route severe weather has been identified as a principal contributor to delays at airports nationwide. Many existing operational severe storm products within en route airspace are limited due to their development from single radar fields. Nevertheless, FAA Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) usually encompass multiple radar umbrellas, and the life cycle of an individual storm may span a large region that requires two or more radars for better monitoring of storm characteristics and evolution.

A 3D, high-resolution multi-radar reflectivity mosaic scheme has been developed. The creation of a 3D radar mosaic allows users and algorithm developers the benefit to use and develop a wide variety of products and displays that more fully depicts the evolution and lifecycle of storms. Examples include more physically realistic horizontal or vertical cross-sections. Gridded radar data can also be easily combined with information from other data sources such as satellite data, 3D lightning data, model analyses or forecast fields increasing its value in the overall forecast and warning process. Single radar algorithms could be expanded to utilize data from multiple radars and other environmental data to more accurately determine storm attributes. Results from several winter and summer cases for the FAA northeast corridor will be shown at the conference.

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