Time is of the essence here. We need to try to get this in to NWS as soon as possible to take advantage of the political climate in favor of working with Academia on worthwhile projects.

The Sigmet RVP-8 is a radar signal processor used to convert Doppler radar low-level data into doppler and reflectivity data. This data is often further processed into a variety of doppler-radar products for the diagnosis of various hydrometeors in the atmosphere.

KTVT, a television station in Fort Worth, Texas, affiliated with the CBS network, has a one-megawatt doppler radar (Baron Advanced Meteorological Services) located at a site west of the Dallas-Fort Worth (D-FW) metroplex. This system uses a Sigmet RVP-8 signal processor which feeds data to a local computer for processing, thence to the station and to Baron for use.

The RVP-8 has a second output that can be configured to simultaneously (or separately) pass data to another data-sink. We propose to use the second feed of the radar signal processor to capture volume scan data, locally process it to Level II data form using the National Weather Service (NWS) open-source CODE88D project software, and then send the resulting output to Texas A&M University for integration into to TAMU. The data will also be provided in real-time to the NWS Forecast Office in Fort Worth, where it could be used by forecasters, if deemed appropriate. The data may also be provided to the Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in San Angelo for areas where the radar coverages overlap.

This project will serve to:

1. Provide a second doppler radar in the Fort Worth (and San Angelo) County Warning Areas (CWA) for use when diagnosing and tracking severe weather;

2. Provide a redundant backup when the NWS Fort Worth radar is out of service for maintenance;

3. Allow the creation of a Dual-Doppler system in the D-FW metropolitan area for diagnosis of significant storms with complex internal structure;

4. Provide a pilot for interfacing to similar broadcast radar systems; and

5. Provide a template for NWS-Broadcast (Public-Private) partnerships and data sharing in the future.

Most broadcast systems are not operated in the way the NWS operates the WSR-88D systems. NWS operates their radars with a profile of Volume Coverage Patterns that captures a “volume scan” ranging in elevation from 0.5-4.5 degrees and taking ten minutes to complete (VCP31) to 0.5-19.5 degrees and requiring about five minutes to complete (VCP12). A modified VCP12 varies the radar's pulse repetition frequency (PRF) to de-alias doppler returns that are extremely high (VCP121: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/doppler/vcp_max.htm). This scan profile also requires about five minutes to complete. Broadcasters are often interested, however, in showing their audiences the largest amount of reflectivity return available, despite the limited utility value of so doing. This proclivity stems from viewer (and management) expectations for what a radar does. Similarly, rather than seeing a scan update every 5 minutes, viewers expect to see “live” scans. Broadcasters often will scan at the 0.0 degree elevation in a live scanning mode just to meet these expectations. Discussions with KTVT meteorologists have resolved that, if new radar products that can provide them with unique (to their market) graphics in near-real-time, they will consider employing VCP31/32/11/12/121 scanning profiles in place of “live” scanning, to better facilitate data-sharing with NWS and A&M.

A&M will, prior to “taking the system live”, prepare a suite of graphics presentations that can be used at A&M and later, at KTVT, to create the same product suites. We anticipate using the following packages for product creation:

• Gempak (Unidata/UCAR)

• IDV (Unidata/UCAR)

• WDSS-II (National Severe Storms Laboratory/NOAA/NSSL and OU)

• NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit (National Climatic Data Center)

• VAPOR (NCAR/UCAR)

Each of these packages offers unique capabilities. Producing similarly unique graphics capable of being shown to viewers requires identifying the best possible products, and producing a workflow capable of creating these graphics in near real time.

We propose to make the products available to KTVT using the Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM) software, a widely-used publish-subscribe tool to disseminate radar and other meteorological data. A&M has extensive experience with the software and is confident that it can be configured and managed at KTVT with little station intervention. NWS has significant LDM experience, as well, and therefore we will provide the data to WFO Fort Worth (and San Angelo) in the same manner.

Additional Pages Go below here!

See the last iteration of the unsolicited proposal
.