pdf - 3.4 MB

Presentation
for the
MPAR WG Meeting 2010-03
Douglas Forsyth
National Severe Storms Laboratory
Chief, Radar Research & Development Division
November 2010

TAP – NSSL Activities
• Reviewed and Commented on LL SOW
• Proceeded with TASK VI – BCI Contract
– Finalize design of prototype RF and control electronics
– Begin fabrication of the RF and control modules
– Goal – Build 12x12 dual polarized radiating panel for
operation at 3.2 GHZ.
• Continued work on White-Paper Request for
Proposals
• Completed Evaluation on SBIR – FreEnt
• Continued Risk Reduction using NWRT

Current Work – Since June 2010
• Signal Processing
– Continued testing adaptive range oversampling
• Result of PAR DSP infrastructure improvements (ease of adding
processors)
• Result: Reduced scan time by factor of 2 with improved data
quality.
• Adaptive Scanning
– Continued testing ADAPTS-II enhancements
• i.e. Elevation-prioritized scanning
• Scheduled base scanning
– Different storms scanned with different settings and update times
– Scheduler plans the best sequence of tasks to meet requested
performance.
– Optimizes utilization of radar resources.

Current Work – Since June 2010
• Scan Processing functionality
• Moved from RTC to Digital Signal Processor
• Reduce computation in RTC and allow for maximum
flexibility
• Radar User Interface
– Manual schedule-based scanning
• Modify scanning strategies and change acquisition
parameters on the fly
• Looking at optimum ways to scan storms

Current Work – Since June 2010
• Continued data analysis of NWRT Data & working on
results from PARISE
– Papers presented at AMS Severe Local Storms Conference
• Continued work on Model Initialization with PAR data
• Continued Work by OU Collaborators
– Dual-Polarization element design
– Eight Channel addition to the NWRT (Mono-pulse, Clutter
channels)
– Cylindrical Dual-Polarized PAR antenna
– Mobile Imaging Radar
• Wind Turbine Mitigation
– Follow-on funding by DHS

Upgrades
Radar
Hardware
Radar Control
Interface
(client)
A/D
Converters
Real Time
Controller
Radar Control
Scheduler Interface
(server)
Adaptive
scanning
Archive
ATP
Processor
SKY Signal
DSP Cluster
Processor
Displays
Archive
Data
Control
Original
Upgraded

User Interface – Adaptive Scanning

User Interface – DSP Status

Range Oversampling

Multi- Receiver System
eight downconverters
eight LNA’s
1 - Az Diff
1 - El Diff
Monopulse
6 – Clutter Channels
Courtesy of Mark Yeary
Installed rack w/ digital receivers

MCR 1: Sum
MCR 2: Delta Az
MCR 3: Delta El
MCR 4: Sidelobe

MCR 5: Sidelobe
MCR 6: Sidelobe
MCR 7: Sidelobe
MCR 8: Sidelobe

MCR 1: Sum
NWRT: Sum

22 nd Vaisala Award
• “Rapid Sampling of Severe Storms by the
NWRT Phased array Radar”
– Weather & Forecasting, 2008

More Firsts for NWRT PAR
031811 UTC 14 May 2009
20 km 20 km
KTLX
KTLX
PAR
PAR
1. First tornadic supercell sampled within 40 km of PAR
- mesocyclones & other vortices within 20 km
2. First supercell advantageously positioned for dual-Doppler
analysis using PAR and KTLX

Did 43 s updates improve depiction of tornado
cyclone evolution?
PAR: 43 s Updates
KTLX: 4.2 min Updates

250 m AGL, 0338:00 – 0346:15 UTC
Vertical Velocity, 1 m s -1 contours
Storm-relative wind vectors
0335:45 UTC
0338:00 UTC 0340:15 UTC 0342:30 UTC
20 ms -1
Vertical Vorticity, 5 x 10 -3 s -1 contours
EF0 Tornado
20 ms -1

Conclusions
43 s updates at 0.5 provided depiction of tornado cyclone
evolution superior to WSR-88D updates
The amplification of vertical vorticity assoc. w/ the tornado
• occurred during the occlusion phase, along axis of
convergence
• evolution suggests vortex co-located with updraft
became dominant likely in response to vortex stretching and
merging with vortex center to its south