• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Phased Array Radar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Thalman
  • Start date Start date

Mike Thalman

I believe they are experimenting with it in Norman. I know that it can scan a particular storm of interest instead of scanning the whole 360. I was curious if anyone knows if the resolution is greater than the current wsr-88? And if there are any examples of storms scans out there that have been done with a phased array radar.
 
NSSL is currently testing a phased array radar system in Norman, as you noted. Some conference preprints that contain some images can be viewed at http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/pardemo/ ... You can sometimes view CURRENT images from the PAR (and the TDWR, which is excellent) at http://wdssii.nssl.noaa.gov/web/wdss2/products/radar/nwrtktlx.shtml ... The PAR isn't always operating, so it'll be a little "hit or miss" on that page.

Our research group (i.e. Howie Bluestein and students) just got more data back from the MWR-05XP (a mobile phased array radar developed primarily by the Naval Postgraduate School and ProSensing) that were collected last spring, which includes one of the most impressive BWERs (actually, a "bounded no echo region") I've seen (31 May 07 Guymon HP supercell). The MWR-05XP combines a very fast rotational speed with phased array technology to accomplish 2-second PPIs. This means that the MWR-05XP can make collect 360-degrees of data at 15 elevation angles approximately every 30 seconds. So, expect to see more PAR-collected data in the coming couple of years.

It's worth noting that a single PAR "plate" can technically scan very near 180 degrees of the sky. However, the larger the angle between the plate normal and the directed scan, the worse the data will be (smaller effective antenna size, etc). So, I think most scanning strategies call for about 60-90 degrees of "scanned" area (plate normal +/- 30-45 degrees). Regardless, the MPAR and the MWR-05XP still rotate the phased array plate to accomplish full PPIs. A completely stationary, 360-degree PAR system would likely require 4 phased array plates, which makes such a system very expensive.
 
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