Compact Radar Network Observation Project in Kochi, Japan

The coastline in Kochi Prefecture, Japan is hot spot of tornado. Especially, the frequency of its occurrence is 32 per 10000 km² per year in the narrow area between Kochi city and Aki city. Moreover, heavy rain frequently occurs here. These storms in this area have been observed by only one operational Doppler radar of Japan Meteorological Agency.

    The present observation project aims to establish new polarymetric radar network system composed by compact X-band radars. The system is similar to CASA radar network. This research and development work is supported by the MIC/SCOPE # 165009001 and is made by research grope in Kochi University, Furuno Electric Co. Ltd. and National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

  Most of radars have same frequency because available frequency band is very narrow in Japan. Therefore, the radars are operated at the same period in order to avoid radio wave interference with each other. The radars make 5 PPI observations at different elevation angles every one minutes. The data observed by these radars are saved in the science cloud system in NICT and the processed data are distributed from it.

     In this presentation, we will report the outline of our project and the initial result.