The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD 1st NWS Severe Weather Technology User Meeting July 12-14, 2005 Mike Istok NPI Development Manager NWS – Office of Science and Technology

Slide 2 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Overview NEXRAD Product Improvement: Progress and plans Schedules: WSR-88D 7-11, SPG 1-3, AWIPS 7-10 Radar Product Distribution Enhancements Open RDA Mesocyclone Detection Algorithm Environmental Data Ingest TDWR Super Resolution Data Dual Polarization Common Operations and Development Environment Priorities: Radar Data Capability Enhancement Summary

Slide 3 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD NPI: Progress and Plans

Slide 4 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Schedules: WSR-88D 7-11, SPG 1-3, AWIPS 7-10 Build 10+, OB9+, SPG 2+ dates are tentative

Slide 5 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Recent Radar Product Distribution Enhancements (Build 6, 7) Compress 8 bit products (Z, V, DHR) –Available for WAN OTR and frame relay dedicated users Class 2 user access to products in RPG database Increase RPS list limit to 160 products (AWIPS OB4.2) AWIPS-WAN based interfaces –OTR Flow Control 64 kbps from NWS WSR-88Ds –OTR Flow Control 28 kbps from DOD and FAA WSR-88Ds –AWIPS configuration change for Dual WAN OTR port use Implement frame relay links –100 kbps allocated to product distribution function –DOD & FAA WSR-88Ds –Supplemental NWS WSR-88Ds radar LAN-LAN interface for RFCs co-located with WSR-88Ds

Slide 6 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Future Radar Product Distribution Enhancements (Build 8, 9) AWIPS-WAN based interfaces –Aggregate Flow Control – 128 kbps from NWS WSR-88D – 64 kbps from DOD and FAA WSR-88Ds –Add two more WAN OTR ports (44-45) –Add one dedicated WAN port (29) for service backup and/or central radar product collection backup (AWIPS OB6) Default Product Generation –Add products to ensure availability for class 2 users Increase frame relay bandwidth to DOD/FAA RPG –To increase Aggregate Flow Control to 128 kbps Generate products for non-assoc. user requests –RCS, VCS, ULR, USP, USD, USW, VAD, and CS

Slide 7 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD

Slide 8 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Open RDA Accurate base data time stamps (obtained via GPS) Base data radials centered on the half degree(+/ deg) Elevation cuts contain 360 radials (i.e., no overlap) New signal processor and clutter filter scheme changes quality of base data General Status Message includes RDA software version and redundant channel number (AWIPS OB6) Suppression level and Channel removed from Clutter Filter Control (CFC) product (AWIPS OB6) Calibration constants in GSM and Reflectivity products changed range and/or format Several changes to Level 2 data format and content

Slide 9 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Mesocyclone Detection Algorithm: Completion Central Collection and NCDC archive of MD product Alerting, CR, and RCM –New MDA Alerting Categories – Use spare Volume(16) and Forecast(32) Group categories – Alert Thresholds based on Strength Rank. –Proposed Defaults: T1=1, T2=2, T3=3, T4=4, T5=5, T6=6 –Modify CZ Combined Attributes (MESO) column – Change from MESO, 3DCO, UNCO or NONE to 1-25(Strength Rank) or NONE –Modify Radar Coded Message (RCM) product – NMESnn: The total number (nn) of mesocyclones (NMES) detected at or above the Minimum Display Filter Strength Rank is encoded. (Example: /NMES05:) – Mnnggg: The location (ggg) and strength rank (nn) of each Mesocyclone at or above the Minimum Display Filter Strength Rank is encoded using the three-letter grid box designator. (Example: M13NLD). Retire legacy Meso algorithm (M, MRU)

Slide 10 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Environmental Data Ingest AWIPS provides hourly update to RPG –AWIPS config. will determine which RPG is being served –3-D grid of temperature, dew point, wind speed and direction –Provide data within range of ~200 nmi from radar –RUC model runs every 3 hours and provides output on 40 km grid –Analysis, 1 hour, 2 hour –40 levels in the vertical MSCF option to use/not-use for automatic updating of: –Environmental winds table (velocity dealiasing algorithm) –Altitude of 0 and -20 deg C temperatures (hail algorithm) MSCF will provide simple data viewer to check data quality Possible future uses –Severe storm algorithms, determine precip. type, compute heights

Slide 11 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD TDWR

Slide 12 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Comparison of TBWI (20.7deg) and KLWX (19.5 deg)

Slide 13 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD

Slide 14 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Super Resolution Base Reflectivity and Velocity products –Initially, just on split cuts –New products –½ degree radials –¼ km range bins Signal processing techniques to reduce variance –Over-sampling –Whitening Algorithm tuning –Mesocyclone –TVS –Precipitation

Slide 15 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD 1 deg / 1 km Resolution0.5 deg / 0.25 km Resolution May 10, :42 UTC

Slide 16 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Dual Polarization Base data products –Differential Reflectivity (Z DR ) –Correlation Coefficient (RHO) –Differential Phase Shift (PHI DP ) Derived products –Specific Differential Phase (K DP ) –Hydrometeor Classification algorithm (HCA) – Convective and winter precipitation versions – Discriminate hail, rain, snow, biological targets, and clutter –Rainfall accumulation algorithm – Based on a combination of polarimetric parameters K DP and Z DR, and the current linear horizontal reflectivity parameter Z

Slide 17 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Supercell Thunderstorm Producing Softball-Size Hail

Slide 18 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD WSR-88D Common Operations and Development Environment (CODE) An algorithm development environment for the WSR-88D Contains software and guidance to create the development environment on an Intel PC running Red Hat Enterprise Workstation Linux or a Sun Ultra-Sparc/Blade with Solaris 8 –Provides a 'clone' of a WSR-88D Radar Product Generator on a workstation which can run existing and user-created algorithms by ingesting WSR-88D Level 2 data –Also used to study past weather events by ingesting Level 2 data obtained from NCDC and creating products for analysis Includes visualization tools, data sets, documentation, and the operational RPG baseline source code Developed and maintained by the NWS OS&T Updated with each new WSR-88D RPG software release Used by groups that implement software for future RPG releases, technique developers, and researchers A Public Edition is available at

Slide 19 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Priorities: Radar Data Capability Enhancements All Tilts Frame Expansion(1.8)* Super-Resolution –Base Z and V Products(1.8) –MDA(2.0), TVS(2.8), PPS(2.8) Dual Polarization –Base Data products(2.0) –HCA(2.0),QPE(2.0) NSSL/FSI 4D Radar (2.3)* Plan View Display of VWP (2.5)* All Tilts Navigation Tool (2.5)* Estimated Actual Velocity (3.3)* Data Quality –SZ-2, SZ-1, Staggered-PRT, Oversampling, Whitening (3.2) –Lower Elevation angles(3.2) –New VCPs(3.4) –300 km Doppler Range(4.3) MDA: Alerting, CR, RCM (3.3) SPG(TDWR) Products –VWP(4.8), Velocity Dealiasing (3.8) –VIL(6.0) –MDA(4.0), TVS(3.8), SCIT(5.3) –PPS(5.3) –CR(6.3), ULR(6.3) Integ. Radar/Enviro. Sampling(4.0)* MIGFA (3.8) Enviro. Data From AWIPS (4.3) Prototype Radars/Products (4.3) Freezing Level ULR Request (4.3)* Moving Point Meteogram (4.3)* Hail Tracks (4.3) ASR-11 (4.5) TVS Tracking (4.8) DVL at a higher scale (5.0) CANRAD (5.0) ARSR-4 (5.0) Rotation Tracks (5.5) SCIT Rapid Update (5.8) Probabilistic Precip. Est. (5.8) VWP Improvements (6.0) VWP Wind Averaging/Stepping (6.3)* Uniform Winds Algo. (7.0) 4km EET (8.3) * - AWIPS only

Slide 20 1st NWS Severe Wx Technology User Meeting: The Future of NWS Technology – NEXRAD Summary Priorities determined with field input –1. Dual Polarization –2. Super Resolution –3. SPG products using TDWR data –4. Whatever else can be done with remaining resources OSIP followed to ensure conops, requirements and business case supports implementation Resource profiles limit quantity of change AWIPS & NEXRAD SRECs determine release content Longer time between major releases lengthens time to deployment and complicates integration Prototype, test, and demo platforms representative of the intended operational environment can foster design refinement and reduce the risk of deploying defects User input and feedback is critical