A busy spring for SMART Radar(s)

by Lou Wicker

Radar coalition partners (NSSL, the University of Oklahoma, Texas Tech University, and Texas A&M) celebrated the May arrival of the revived SR-2, the Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching Radar (SMART-Radar) that was partly destroyed in the July, 2001 NSSL balloon barn fire. SR-1 was at another site at the time of the fire and was unharmed. Efforts by the coalition partners and the extraordinary dedication of Jerry Guynes, the TAMU SMART-Radar engineer, enabled this modern day "phoenix" to literally rise from the ashes. The inset photo shows the two radars during a celebration this past summer. Learning from our experiences with SR-1, SR-2 has improved cab layout, incorporated better computers, and should be able to better withstand the rigors of road travel.

In the meantime, SR-1 was busy. During May 2003, the SR-1 was used to study severe storms and tornadoes as part of a small cooperative project called COMPASS-2003 (Cooperative Observational and Modeling Project for the Analysis of Severe Storms). The first two weeks of May 2003 turned out to be an excellent time to collect data as the central U.S. endured more than 400 tornadoes in a 15-day period. SR-1 collected data from tornadic storms on May 8, 9, and 15. A potentially historic data set was collected from the Oklahoma City tornadoes during the evening of May 9 (an example is shown above) -- This storm was observed by two operational radars and five mobile Doppler radars in Central Oklahoma. SR- 1 collected volumetric data every two minutes for over three hours from two locations while other mobile research radars collected data at different times very close to the tornado. The combination of the long time series of volumetric data from the SR-1 at high time resolution, combined with the more intermittent higher resolution data from the other mobile radars, should provide a unique and detailed look at the evolution of a tornadic storm.

The SR-1 was also used in some nonconventional ways this past spring. SR-1 participated in two Homeland Defense programs, run by the U.S. Army, to investigate how weather radar could be used to detect the release of hazardous chemical or biological materials via aircraft. In February, SR-1 was used in a 10-day experiment at Camp Gruber near Muskogee, OK. During late March and early April SR-1 was part of an experiment conducted around Central Oklahoma. Data from SR-1 and other radars and instruments used during the experiment, are currently being analyzed.

Information regarding the SMARTRadar program as well as the latest news can be found at http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/ smartradars.