The Service also provides essential weather information in support of the nation’s river and flood prediction program as well as in support of civilian aviation, agriculture, forestry and marine operations. 3 NWS is responsible for the detection of hazardous weather and for warning the public about these hazards in a timely, accurate, and effective way. The primary mission organizations within these agencies are the NWS, 1 the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), 2 the Naval Meteorological and Oceanography Command (NMOC) and the FAA. The NEXRAD principal user agencies are the Department of Commerce (DOC), DoD, and Department of Transportation (DOT). A number of systems have evolved to accomplish the integration of weather observations, many of which are intended to support commercial and general aviation. Thus, the “open RPG” (ORPG) will generate and display the various products as well as relaying the relevant data on for display on other systems.Īlthough the NEXRAD system of radars is of major value as a stand-alone weather-observing network, additional value is obtained through the integration of NEXRAD data with other weather observations and associated analyses. As computer technology has advanced, open-systems architecture is being implemented to replace both the RPG and PUP units. The PUP was essentially a mainframe minicomputer, with a monitor, that operated programs to generate displays from a rather limited set of possibilities. These systems include the FAA’s Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) and short- and long-range surveillance radars, atmospheric wind profilers (Rich, 1992), and radar systems operated by television stations and other private entities.ĭata Display, Dissemination, and ArchivingĪ “principal user processor (PUP)” associated with each NEXRAD installation, and numerous additional “remote PUPs,” provided the initial data display capability. Data from other radar systems can also augment the NEXRAD data set. In addition to these, the radar system has evolved into a critical tool that supports numerous other meteorological applications. The primary functions of the system are to provide measurements for monitoring and forecasting severe storms, developing flash flood warnings, and contributing to other hydrologic applications. A common design for all the radars helped ensure high reliability and performance while reducing maintenance complexity and life-cycle costs. Although there are some differences among the radars operated by the three agencies, the design is essentially uniform for all radars. Data from this system support activities of the National Weather Service (NWS), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Department of Defense (DoD) they are distributed to a wide variety of other users as well. Most of these radars were deployed over the United States and some overseas locations in the 1990s. agencies is the WSR-88D (NEXRAD) system, consisting of about 150 nearly identical radars. The primary weather surveillance radar system operated by U.S. As a baseline it is appropriate to begin with a review of the existing system.
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