1. The National Severe Storms Laboratory Jeff Kimpel, Director NSSL NOAA Science Advisory Board Norman, Oklahoma November 5, 2002

2. NSSL in a Nutshell Federal Laboratory, part of Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 49 Federal Employees ~90 mostly CIMMS Associates $ 15 M Annual Expenditures ($6.0 M Base)

4. Funding History

5. Staffing

6. NSSL Core Competencies Competencies –Weather radar expertise –Radar based software development –Severe Weather field experiment facilities and support –Modeling components – convection, 4D data assimilation –Lightning, Dynamics –Forecast/warning improvements

7. Applications Understand Severe Weather Processes Modeling Studies Observational Studies To work in partnership with the National Weather Service to enhance NOAA’s capability of providing accurate forecasts and warnings of all types of hazardous weather events The NSSL Mission: NOAA Services Theoretical Studies

8. –1 km resolution –5 bands (NDVI) –daily revisit –inexpensive “real-time” data capture NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR)

9. Fraction of Living Vegetation Coverage (mid-July) Present technique (5-yr average)Using real-time satellite data Harvested wheat fields

10. Forecasts using new vegetation data Forecasts using 5-yr average vegetation data Blue dots that are close to the red line indicate more accurate high temperature forecasts

11. Numerical simulation of thunderstorms developing along a dryline in western Oklahoma used to enhance our understanding of how and why thunderstorms develop Moist air Dry air Dryline

12. Commitment to Observations

13. Dual-Polarization Improved Rainfall Estimates

14. Dual Polarization

16. New Opportunity…… Phased Array Radar very fast – 20 secs. vs. 26 mins. for the 88D dwell - many beams but very expensive Funding to date: $10M cash, Navy $9.4M antenna, Navy $6.0M cash, FAA $1.5M cash, U. of Okla. $1.4M in-kind, Lockheed $0.5M transmitter, NWS $1.0M cash, OAR

17. Rodger Brown, NSSL 2/00 3 May 1999 1828 CDT Tornado 40 km WSW of KCRI, Norman, OK (Archive I time-series data converted to Archive II data to create SOLO display, which has different color table than RADS display) Current Resolution Full Resolution Enhanced Resolution RADS SOLO Reflectivity 1.0 o x 1.0 kmReflectivity 1.0 o x 0.25 km Reflectivity 0.5 o x 0.25 km Velocity 1.0 o x 0.25 kmVelocity (aliased) 1.0 o x 0.25 km Velocity (aliased) 0.5 o x 0.25 km 2 km range marks same resolution 1.2 o elevation angle 36 pulses18 pulses

18. Composite Reflectivity: SPY-1 v. WSR-88D Hurricane Fran Remnants SPY-1 NEXRAD

19. Phased Array Radar Challenges –Secure funds for research effort –Recruit appropriate talent –Reengineer radar system – tactical to meteorological –Work productively with five partners

20. Phased Array Module Cost Trends Estimated Production Cost ($K) Prices for Solid-State T/R Modules are Trending Downward $

21. Homeland Security issues Three dimensional aircraft tracking –High FAA interest $3 M in FY01 $3 M in FY02 $? M in FY03 Requesting $10 M in FY04 –Monopulse? Chem/Bio detection, tracking, and forecasting –Boca Chica experiment –OKC, February, 2002 –FOCUS in Oklahoma City, summer 2003 –$200k Navy opportunity for NSSL and ARL

22. “National Weather Center” NOAA Weather Partners –National Severe Storms Lab (NSSL) –Storm Prediction Center (SPC) –WSR-88D Radar Operations Center (ROC) –OKC Weather Service Forecast Office (WFO) –Warning Decision Training Branch (WDTB) OU –School of Meteorology (SOM) –Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) –Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) –Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) –others