A $30 million national asset for weather radar research is now operational in Norman, Oklahoma. This project was developed as a result of a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Severe Storms Laboratory, the United States Navy's Office of Naval Research, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the University of Oklahoma's Electrical Engineering Department and School of Meteorology, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the Tri-Agencies' (Department of Commerce, Defense and Transportation) Radar Operations Center, the Federal Aviation Administration's Technical Center and Basic Commerce and Industries, Inc.. This project involved converting the Navy's SPY-1 phased array antenna system into a weather research tool.

The National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) will provide the first phased array radar available on a full-time basis to the meteorological research community. The testbed will serve as a tool for radar research and investigation of techniques for utilizing phased array radars for weather sensing. We estimate that a phased array radar system could provide volumetric update rates of less than one minute and combined with improved scan strategies and processing algorithms, could significantly increase the lead times for warnings of hazardous weather.

The NWRT will be operational in September 2003. In this paper, we will describe the system capability, our progress to date, current research schedule and present some examples of the first data sets obtained with this new national facility.