Old school radar

[Todd Krause]

Reaching back 20 years into the recesses of my mind, the 9's represented precip of unknown intensity that was thought to be light.

It's been the early 90s since I coded a manual radar ob, but I vaguely recall coding up a 9 if the echo was greater than 125 nmi away. If the storm was known to be severe and beyond 125 nmi, one would enter an 8.

Todd

 

[Joel Wright]

Haha, I don't know if it's just because it's the off season, or I looked at that image too long, but you can almost visualize a supercell north-northwest of "stop".

 

[Mike Smith]

there was no way to get them without signing up for a $1000/mo contract with AT&T Long Lines Services. I knew hobbyists with NOAA Weather Wire, but not DIFAX.

EDIT: I just found this link: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n5/weatherfacsimile.html which has info on getting fax maps. They quote a $222 installation with $33 monthly fee, which is not even close to the astronomical rates I was quoted in 1987.. maybe those cheap rates are before deregulation.

I believe this is the explanation for the differences in rates: The radar charts were available on both NAFAX (the analog and less expensive service) as well as the new (in 1987) DIFAX service which was much more expensive.

Deregulation had nothing to do with it -- telecommunication rates (especially when adjusted for inflation) have come way down since deregulation. In fact, in those days, you had to get a 'permit' from the NWS or the phone company (which had a monopoly) wouldn't install the service. It could take months in some cases.

Now, it is very easy and inexpensive to get whatever one needs...including DIFAX charts which are available here: http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/miscella.shtml#mhum

Mike

 

[rdale]

You aren't a real meteorologist if you didn't ever grab your scanner (radio, not document!) and sit down in front of it at 6pm to listen to the Coast Guard broadcast of barometer settings from across the Great Lakes states and plot them

 

[Mike Smith]

You aren't a real meteorologist if you didn't ever grab your scanner (radio, not document!) and sit down in front of it at 6pm to listen to the Coast Guard broadcast of barometer settings from across the Great Lakes states and plot them

Or FAA long wave radio and plot the transcribed SA's!

I created my own surface chart base maps (with open circles for plotting the station models) and convinced someone to run them off on a mimeograph machine (this was before Xerography was available to the consumer). Over time, I was able to plot as fast as they were read. I can still hand-plot a surface chart fairly fast.

Growing up in Kansas City, the same broadcasts included the transcribed MKC (Kansas City) RAREPS that sounded something like this: Kansas City RAY-REP two-one-three-five zulu. Area scattered light rain, no change in intensity, from zero-one-zero degrees at forty-five miles to zero-eight-five degrees at one hundred three miles to one-seven-zero degrees at thirty-six miles. Movement two-three-zero at 30 knots. Maximum tops, two-eight-zero.

Line broken thunderstorms with heavy rain, twenty miles wide, increasing in intensity, two-two zero degrees at seventy two miles to three-three zero degrees at sixty miles. Cell movement, two-three zero degrees at thirty-eight knots; line movement, two-seven zero at fifteen knots. Maximum top, four-niner-zero, two-seven zero at fifty miles.

Those were really hard to follow! I'd try to plot them on top of my surface chart and relate them to front locations, etc., with varying degrees of success. It was valuable experience and it did give me a strong feel for short-term forecasting without the use of models or other tools.

I had a homemade 'orchard-style' thermometer shelter in the back yard (edge of the yard, not too close to house) with 'official' max/min thermometers I ordered from the late David Ludlum's instrument company (I forget its name). Of course, I kept a journal of the daily readings.

Amazing what we all did for love of the weather.

 

[Adam Childers]

LOL This is one of the times I worship the advancement of technology

 

[Tim Vasquez]

I went back into my technical library from the 1985 era and found these gems:

Once you buy all that and get your leased line set up, make sure you factor in the cost of consumables too (e.g. stinky Alden Fax paper or the pressure sensitive paper this particular unit needs).

Tim

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Thanks for posting. It was quite interesting read how the weather data was obtained in the old days.

Since this data is pretty easily encoded, I wrote a little converter in PHP and HTML and here's how the radar picture posted by Tim should approximately look like:

 

[Jay McCoy]

Thanks for posting. It was quite interesting read how the weather data was obtained in the old days.

Since this data is pretty easily encoded, I wrote a little converter in PHP and HTML and here's how the radar picture posted by Tim should approximately look like:

I think I can make out a hook!!!!

I will be honest. I do NOT miss the old days of printout forecast and currents maps and out in the field with nothing but a handdrawn forecast, a map, and a camera. I do miss having the road to myself and maybe a 1/2 dozen guys on a high risk type day. Maybe see Tim V. or Tim M. or Jim Leonard or Chuck and thats about it.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Thanks for posting. It was quite interesting read how the weather data was obtained in the old days.

Since this data is pretty easily encoded, I wrote a little converter in PHP and HTML and here's how the radar picture posted by Tim should approximately look like:

As funny as it may sound, on the day of a good setup, that image is all you'd need. If there is a single big blob of high reflectivity on the radar, that's where you want to be. Assuming you can't already visually see the thing from where you are for one reason or another. On a day like 5/29/04, 6/12/04 or 6/12/05, ascii radar could actually be enough information to choose a storm. With those cells, you don't need to see a high-res hook image to know that you want to be on the south side of one.

 

[Joe Dorn]

Anyone have a copy of the old teletype weather messages?

Each station would send an encoded message using special teletypes that could be decoded to create a station model. I had to decode the ones for the North Texas area while I was working for Convair Fort Worth as a ground to air communicator for the B58 program.

I believe the Golden Guide to Weather, circa 1960, (my first weather oriented book) has an example.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

A few items relating to MDR (manually digitized radar):

MDR grid for Amarillo. Every echo "pixel" is as big as one county! The subgrids I believe were for tallying precipitation numbers, but as I recall, the WSR-88D when it came online actually subdivided the MDR block into 16 portions, coincidentally as shown below, in its automated RAREP messages.

Paper on MDR for hydrometeorological use at WSFO FTW:

Actual precipitation estimate from MDR radar... how far things have come since 1978!

This sorry scheme... er, sorry, I forget we're spoiled today... USEFUL scheme for its era, was pretty much all we had until 1995, though fine resolution radar was available to hobbyists in the 1980s via cable TV, AccuData (you needed software to decode the obscure Tektronix graphics format), airport FBOs, and some other random sources.

Tim

 

[Nick Smith]

I recall that the higher resolution (2 km?) radar mosaics didn't appear on The Weather Channel until around the fall of 1989. Prior to that, the national radar picture was the MDR (sometimes with echo tops). To supplement that, they would use a Kavouras machine to dial into the individual radar sites (60, 120, 180, 240 nm) with looping shown at times. I'm not sure what the resolution was of the digitally transmitted local radar data, but the pixels looked comparable to the current Level III.

This video shows MDR on the national map, with higher resolution views on the regional maps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WysERH28TqE

Almost forgot about these:

MDR shot on TWC from July 1986


Neenah, WI radar around the same time