The 15th International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems(IIPS) for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology

5.11
USE OF ALL AVAILABLE FAA AND NEXRAD WEATHER RADAR DATA TO PROVIDE IMPROVED PRODUCT QUALITY AND HAZARDOUS WEATHER DETECTION

Steve Shema, FAA, Washington, DC; and R. C. Goff, R. Saffle, and F. Toepfer

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) are about to enter a partnership to explore the feasibility of using, within the NEXRAD (WSR-88D) domain, weather data from several types of operational FAA Doppler radars. This paper will describe the proof of concept study that will begin with the use of Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) base data and will later include data from those Airport Surveillance Radars (ASR) and Air Route Surveillance Radars (ARSR) with digital output streams. The ASR and ARSR radars involved are the ASR-9 (S-band) and the ARSR-4 (L-band), respectively. The TDWR is a C-band radar. These three FAA radar types are deployed at well over 200 locations. The consolidation of their data with the data from the 140 WSR-88Ds in the contiguous United States has the potential to complement WSR-88D data to provide a significant improvement in the quality and comprehensiveness of weather radar information. Some likely user benefits include weather detection in areas contaminated by anomalous propagation, ground clutter and range folding; weather coverage in areas where there is beam blockage, in the cone of silence and below the radar horizon; increased resolution through different sampling perspectives; backup in the event of a WSR-88D outage; and the facilitation of rectilinear wind field generation.


The 15th International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems(IIPS) for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology