NWS priorities for the enhancement of radar capabilities

The National Weather Service (NWS) continually looks at ways to improve the radar products used by field forecasters in their forecast and warning mission. This is accomplished by working with the other NEXRAD agencies (Department of Defense, Air Force Weather Agency and the Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration) to improve software and hardware on the WSR-88D, and by working with its own Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) program. Due to recent and planned software and hardware improvements in both the WSR-88D and AWIPS, there is a growing list of potential new radar products, applications, and techniques. A select team of NWS field forecasters, software developers, and program managers have begun prioritizing this list. This paper discusses the items on the potential enhancement list, the prioritization process, initial findings, and future work.