Development of Weathernews' radar operations

With operations on a global scale, Weathernews is faced with ingesting, analyzing, and producing radar products from many diverse sources. Data is currently ingested from the United States, Italy, China, Australia, Japan, Canada, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, England, France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany in a variety of ways including graphical images, real-time raw data, and pseudo-real-time derived products. An array of analyses and products are created for internal forecasters while real-time displays of radar data are used to service clients.

Timeliness and availability of data can vary greatly from country to country creating a paucity of observations in some regions such as Japan (Global Headquarters for Weathernews). Although a national radar network exists, complete geographical coverage is lacking, data is not available in real-time, and most radars are non-Doppler. Moreover, recent severe weather events in Japan have brought to light the need for improvements in the nation's ability to detect localized weather hazards. Thus, Weathernews is aggressively establishing relationships to enhance the quality and quantity of radar observations through deployment of its own radar network. Development of a state-of-the-science, adaptively sensing network is being pursued. This type of network should provide much-needed additional radar data, improve the ability to detect small-scale weather hazards and create an opportunity for Weathernews to uniquely meet the user needs of its clients. To this end, Weathernews is taking advantage of its Oklahoma Center in Norman, Oklahoma, strategically collocated with the National Weather Center building and the University of Oklahoma, to establish collaborative relationships for improving radar operations.

This paper serves to give an overview of Weathernews' current radar operations as well as future plans to significantly improve the availability and applicability of radar data in Japan.