A Meteorologist Embedded with Engineers: Bringing NWS User Perspectives to the Design of Future Operational Weather Radar Systems

Research and development of complex systems usually lacks the inclusion of user needs, which can lead to inefficient research efforts. This is not the case for the multidisciplinary Advanced Radar Techniques (ART) team (i.e. a group of expert weather radar engineers) at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). A meteorologist with extensive National Weather Service (NWS) forecasting and training experience joined the ART team for the Spectrum Efficient National Surveillance Radar (SENSR) project. Our shared focus has been on the aspects of future radar system design that have the greatest impact on radar data quality, which directly affect NWS forecast and warning decision making. This unique two-way learning environment within the team has improved both our overall understanding of weather radars and the richness of our results by combining the most relevant qualitative and quantitative data analysis processes. We share the lessons from our research to showcase the advantages of meteorologists and engineers working together. The symbiotic nature of our work significantly improves the saliency of our results to support NWS mission critical operations.