No TDWR after all...

[rdale]

Looks like things won't be available publicly... NWS expects to have all 45 TDWR's into AWIPS by September 2008, however they did not allocate the resources for public distribution.

There is a proposal to put the data on the central server and redistribute in Level II format by FY2010, but it's not been funded.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Pardon my ignorance, what is TDWR?

 

[Mike Smith]

TWDR = Terminal Doppler Weather Radar. It is located at major airports throughout the United States and has higher low-level resolution, with continuous one minute scans, than the WSR-88D.

We really need TWDR data in the severe weather belt.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Wow... That's sad. Are they afraid of Accuweather that they do this? Or insufficient funding?

 

[Tyler_Costantini]

Thanks for looking that up.. I think this came from my post on the GRLevelx forum.

Does this mean that they just wont have public servers for it? Like level2 data?
Will it be in the LDM feed? If it's in the LDM feed people could host the data like Allison House.

I'm going to send an e-mail to my contact at Colorado State Atmos and see what Unidata has to say about the whole thing.

 

[rdale]

It means that it won't be available outside of NWS until 2010 at the earliest, due to a lack of funding.

 

[Chris Nuttall]

I thought I read somewhere that a potential setback was bandwidth issues. I think the data that would come from the TDWRs would require a LOT more bandwidth to pipe it for public distribution. Sounds like the didn't get the money for that.

 

[rdale]

No, TDWR's are MUCH less bandwidth than any other radar, since they don't do volume scans. The bandwidth is just a token amount, ESPECIALLY when you compare to the coming super-res 88D data.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

...they don't do volume scans.

They most certainly do!

The TDWR uses interlaced volume scans, where the 0.5 degree tilt is repeated every 60 seconds while the remaining upper tilts are collected.

Plus each TDWR has a different set of elevation angles, tuned to airport location and elevation relative to the radar site.

 

[rdale]

Interesting - the case study I saw only showed 1/2 degree data, and the NWSFO I talked to said they only get that every few minutes regardless of precip being in the area (other offices say that the refresh rate increases when active weather is ongoing.)

I still find it difficult to believe that they use more bandwidth than super-res data, do you have numbers offhand?

 

[Patrick Marsh]

I don't think they use more bandwidth than super-res simply do to the distance the radars cover. However, I'd suspect that before super-res the TDWR data was comparable (at least closer) to NEXRAD data (in terms of bandwidth) simply from their finer resolution.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Rob, et. al.

Are there any resolution samples for the WSR-88D Build 10 (i.e. images)?

For those who are also interested, here's the dedicated ROC page: http://www.roc.noaa.gov/NWS_Level_2/BuildInfo/b10main.aspx

 

[rdale]

Yes, GR2AE displays the superres data and it's a big improvement. Right now they aren't sending it out that way while testing, next time it's up I'll post something.

You can find one sample at the end of http://www.roc.noaa.gov/NWS_Level_2/Update0907_Lvl2_Rev0.pdf

 

[Robert Dewey]

Thanks Rob... Can't wait to get my hands on that stuff!