07-03-2025
New weather radar will provide quicker, detailed storm tracking
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Doppler radar is vital to know what lurks in the clouds, and new technology is coming that will give us an even better view into the sky.
Our eyes only tell us so much about the weather. Meteorologists need X-ray vision to get the bigger picture, and they have Doppler radar to accomplish that.
'It's actually one of the most significant tools that we use. We use the radar, really, to assess what's happening in the near term here in our environment,' Ken Cook, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Wichita, said. 'We use it in many ways. Specifically, the biggest one is with severe storms. We're looking at: Is the storm tornadic? Is it producing hail?'
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Currently, 160 radar sites across the United States are constantly scanning the skies. This system is called the Next Generation Weather Radar or NEXRAD.
Since the system was implemented in the 1990s, it has increased the warning time to get folks to shelter. Upgrades to these radars have kept them up to date with new tools like dual-polarization data, which tells the difference between rain, snow, and even tornado debris.
NEXRAD is invaluable, but it is becoming outdated. New radar technology is under development that will address some of the current system's shortcomings, most importantly, how quickly the radar scans.
Traditional radars use a dish that spins and tilts at various angles with each scan. The whole process of gathering data at all levels can take five minutes or longer.
The future is Phased Array Radar (PAR).
'It just looks like a flat wall, but it's an array of antenna elements, and so the way it works is that we have these thousands of little antennas and these little antennas each transmit a different signal,' Dr. David Schvartzman, assistant professor at the OU Advanced Radar Research Center, said.
The antennas are timed down to the microsecond to fire in precise patterns. The waves from those antennas interlock with each other in phase, hence the name.
'We can steer the beam and scan different directions electronically, without any movement of the antenna. And so if we have two storms … and there is nothing in between, we can just scan this one and scan the other one, and we don't waste any time scanning in between,' Schvartzman said.
Phased array radar is lightning fast, literally. A scan of the entire sky can be done in 30 seconds. Targeted scans are even faster, nearly instantaneous. This is quick enough to analyze individual lightning flashes.
Higher-resolution data like this will save lives. With the current radar setup, a tornado can quickly form, do damage, and dissipate all within the time it takes the current system to complete a single scan.
'The lowest levels of the atmosphere is where a lot of the action happens. With tornadoes and tornadogenesis, is the tornado forming near the ground and going upward or in the cloud and coming downward? There's scientific arguments for how a tornado actually forms. Maybe resolving some of those things,' Cook said.
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It will be some time before a wide-reaching network of phased array radars can be deployed for operational use. Current rollout estimates are for sometime in the 2030s.
We look forward to having more power to stay ahead of the storm.
Severe Weather Preparedness Week runs from March 3 to 7. During this time, KSN's Storm Track 3 Weather Team will discuss severe weather safety topics daily on air and online.
Before the first storm strikes your hometown, download the free KSN Storm Track 3 weather app. All information comes from KSN's staff of meteorologists who have the instinct and intellect only those trained here in Kansas have available at their fingertips.
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