The Dallas-Fort Worth Urban Weather Radar Network

Since spring 2012, the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) has embarked the development of Dallas-Fort worth (DFW) urban remote sensing network to demonstrate the operational feasibility of the dense radar network in a metropolitan environment. It is a network consisting of 8 dual-polarization X-band weather radars covering the greater DFW metropolitan region. This network is designed to provide real time high-spatial and temporal radar and other data to diverse user community for urban flood mitigation and severe weather warning operations. The major goals include urban flash flood mitigation, severe weather warning and demonstration of network-of-network concept (NRC, 2009). It is also expected to be an ideal development platform for multi-Doppler wind retrieval, quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE), quantitative precipitation forecast (QPE), and accurate hydrologic response. In addition, multi-sensor products will be generated as well from combining the existing remote sensors such as KFWS radar (a WSR-88D radar), TDWR, and local rainfall gauges.

This paper will first present a brief overview of the development of DFW radar network. The current installation status and recent field observations will then be described in depth. Sample data and products from different applications will be shown to demonstrate the capability of the Urban demonstration radar network.