Project CRAFT: transition to operations

Project CRAFT (Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test) successfully proved that real-time access to high-resolution data from multiple radars is technically possible and economically viable. As a result, high-resolution radar data from the national network of NEXRAD radars will soon be archived and delivered over the Internet in near real-time to government, university and private sector users. This achievement is the result of previous efforts by NSSL in the early 1990's to use the real-time 88D data for algorithm development in support of warnings decision support workstation systems for NWS forecasters.

Project CRAFT was implemented in 1998 by a coalition of researchers from OU's Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS), NSSL, and the NWS-ROC. They wanted to see if it was possible to access valuable WSR-88D data in real-time for input to high-resolution numerical forecast models by taking advantage of existing high-performance networking capabilities and other recent technological advances. An equally important goal of the research group was to improve archiving of these data. At the time, WSR-88D radar data was being recorded by costly, inefficient, and human resource-intensive 8mm tape cartridge recording systems. CRAFT partners include NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), University Corporation for Atmospheric Research's (UCAR) UNIDATA program, MITLincoln Laboratory, and the FAA.

The Level-II base data, which includes high-resolution reflectivity, velocity, and spectrum width, will be transported to users over a combination of the Abilene/Internet2 backbone network and the commodity (commercial) Internet. The initial testbed for CRAFT included six WSR-88D radars in Oklahoma and Texas. During the past three years, the project grew to support 62 radars located across the United States. The NWS plans to expand CRAFT to include all of their WSR-88D radars and 11 Department of Defense WSR-88D radars. The expansion will implement the technology nationwide to electronically collect and transmit the data in realtime to the NCDC for archival and to other users.

NSSL continues its research leading into the next phase of CRAFT, which includes exploring lower-cost connections such as cable modems, DSL and integrated lines from the radar site into the Internet, evaluating the latency characteristics and reliability statistics of the these technologies and looking at a new version of Unidata's Local Data Manager (LDM) software. The NWS has committed to maintaining the existing data distribution system at CAPS in support of ongoing research at universities, government laboratories, and private sector partners during the transition period to an NWS operational system.