Progress in the Use of Weather Data from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Radars in Combination with the WSR-88D

The FAA presently operates several types of air traffic control (ATC) radars with associated weather data processing. None of these sources of weather radar data is being used by the NWS or DOD operational forecast offices. Combined with the WSR-88D data, this data could be beneficial in many ways for the NWS, DOD, and FAA operations. The applicable FAA radars are the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR), the Airport Surveillance Radars (ASR-9 and 11), and the Air Route Surveillance Radar (ARSR-4).

The approach for the NWS in using FAA weather radar data is threefold. The first method is ingesting FAA weather radar data and products into the Open Radar Product Generation (ORPG) subsystem, which is the main product generation computer for the WSR-88D. The second method is to perform preprocessing, standalone product generation, and combined FAA/WSR-88D product generation within the ORPG. The third method is to provide products derived using FAA weather radar data to ORPG users.

There are benefits to the Nation in the NWS using FAA weather radar data. This data can be used to complement the WSR-88D for (1) the WSR-88D "cone of silence", (2) long range, low-level phenomena, (3) different viewing perspectives for a given storm, (4) potential mitigation of range folding obscuration, (5) backup during outages, (6) data in areas of incomplete coverage, (7) multiple Doppler analyses, (8) improved "best info" mosaics, (9) improved quality control of WSR-88D weather radar data, and (10) improved precipitation estimates.

Recommendations which will be put forth will include (1) to begin detailed planning and management of weather radar data from FAA radars as part of the NEXRAD Product Improvement (NPI) project, and (2) to begin development and implementation consistent with the NPI Project Plan.