In the late 1990's, the US Navy conducted experiments to validate the use of shipboard air surveillance radars as weather radars. The first experiment used the SPY-1B/D radar and proved, through a series of land-based and at-sea demonstrations, that a naval radar could make meaningful measurements of atmospheric conditions as an adjunct process to the radar's normal tactical mission. The Tactical Environmental Processor, the prototype adjunct SPY-1 weather processor, first went to sea in 1999 onboard the USS OKANE (DDG77) and subsequently on the USS NORMANDY (CG60). Since then, additional experiments were conducted with the SPS-48E radar, most recently culminating with a successful demonstration of the Hazardous Weather Detection and Display Capability (HWDDC) on board the USS PELELIU in April 2006. A second installation and sea trial is planned for the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN73) in late 2007.

As these prototype systems transition to the fleet, HWDDC and TEP will be standardized around a common architecture and processing suite based on commercial technology and open-architecture software that can be inserted into the next generation of radar signal processors. A set of basic weather radar products and data formats is being generated to provide a complete array of weather data to users onboard the ship, as well as users within the battlegroup and ashore. This paper will describe the latest approach for weather product generation and dissemination for the TEP and HWDDC systems, and show the roadmap for transitioning these technologies to the fleet.