Past and Future Deployments of the Colorado State University Sea-Going and Land Deployable Polarimetric (SEA-POL) Radar

The Colorado State University (CSU) Sea-Going Polarimetric (SEA-POL) radar has been designated as a community facility available for deployment requests through the National Science Foundation (NSF). The stabilization and rugged design of SEA-POL allow for research-grade accuracy of weather radar measurements on a ship or on land that can probe the structure of clouds and precipitation. The portable, 5-cm wavelength radar provides observations that can be used to study tropical and mid-latitude weather, regional climate and climate change, cloud microphysics, and mesoscale processes. SEA-POL can also contribute to interdisciplinary science in oceanography, hydrology, and water resources. The radar has been deployed in SPURS-2 (2017) and PISTON (2018/2019) shipborne campaigns and was deployed on land on a remote island during PRECIP 2022. An overview of SEA-POL, highlights from past deployments, and future plans will be presented. Information for potential users of this community facility including request procedures and availability of open-source software tools to process SEA-POL data will also be presented.