Impact of Phased-Array Radar on Storm-Scale NWP Modeling for Severe Weather Prediction

The NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) is actively developing Multifunction Phased Array Radar (MPAR) technology, the potential next-generation high-resolution weather radar to replace the current operational WSR-88D radars. More recently in 2016, the FAA, DoD, DHS and NOAA also formed a cross-agency effort called the Spectrum Efficient National Surveillance Radar (SENSR) to investigate the possibility to vacate bandwidth for commercial use by consolidating the various federal radar networks into a common system. The goal is to utilize less of the spectrum while performing the necessary functions efficiently to meet the agency requirements. The potential solution for the SENSR effort leverages well and is coordinated with NSSL’s ongoing MPAR research and development activities. As part of these efforts, research is underway to assess the potential impact of PAR rapid and adaptive scanning capabilities to storm-scale NWP models and NSSL’s experimental Warn-on-Forecast (WoF) system. Ensemble data assimilation and forecast experiments are conducted using National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) PAR data which was located in Norman, Oklahoma, for high impact severe convective events. The objective is to determine 1) the benefits of assimilating PAR compared to WSR-88D, 2) the optimal temporal frequency of PAR data and 3) the impact of dual polarization PAR on WoF system. Results from these studies will be presented at the conference.