[ESIP-all] FW: [Fwd: High-Resolution, Real Time Radar Data Now Available from NOAA] (fwd)

Tue Apr 13 14:50:04 EDT 2004

>From Martha Maiden....

>Announcement provided as a community service.
>
>
>
>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: High-Resolution, Real Time Radar Data Now Available from NOAA
>Resent-From: roc.all at noaa.gov,roc.north at noaa.gov
>Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 09:47:52 -0500
>From: "Keli Tarp" <Keli.Tarp at noaa.gov>
>Organization: NOAA Weather Partners
>
>DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NEWS RELEASE
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>April 13, 2004
>CONTACT:
>Greg Romano, (301) 713-0622 ext. 169
>Keli Tarp, (405) 366-0451
>
>HIGH-RESOLUTION, REAL TIME RADAR DATA NOW AVAILABLE FROM NOAA
>
>High-resolution radar data from the national network of Next Generation
>Radar (NEXRAD) is now available in real time to government, university
>and private sector users, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic
and
>Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today.
>
>This data represents the highest resolution picture of what the radar
>system is "seeing" in real time - as the antenna spins.  As a result,
>faster, higher resolution and more detailed weather products will be
>developed.  Researchers have already proven the value of this data in
>various applications.  Now it will be available to everyone.
>
>The National Weather Service (NWS) will distribute the data from the
>Next Generation Radar, also known as the WSR-88D, through four top-tier
>sites, said Tim Crum, NWS NEXRAD Operations Focal Point with the Radar
>Operations Center in Norman, Okla.  Three of these sites -- Purdue
>University, University of Oklahoma, and The Education and Research
>Consortium of the Western Carolinas -- have agreed to make Level II
data
>available to all private sector users equally on a cost-recovery basis
>without restriction on redistribution or use. The fourth site, the NWS
>Telecommunication Operations Center, will make data available through a
>Family of Services approach if there is interest from the commercial
>community.
>
>Users are free to determine their source of Level II data, either from
>these four sites or from private companies and universities that will
>receive the data from the top-tier sites, according to Crum.
>
>"The National Weather Service is committed to working together with
>academia and the private sector to develop products and services that
>enhance the shared goal of protecting lives and property," said retired
>Air Force Brig. General David L. Johnson, director of NOAA's National
>Weather Service.  "Moreover, this action supports the National Research
>Council's "Fair Weather" recommendations to enhance the availability
and
>dissemination of National Weather Service data."
>
>"Making this critical data available in real time is an important step
>in enhancing that partnership, and we should see a new era in weather
>forecasting as a result of new products and services yet to be
developed
>using this enhanced, real time information," Johnson added.
>
>"The NWS is using the Unidata public domain Local Data Manager
>technology to collect and redistribute Level II data," Crum explained.
>The NWS will send copies of the Level II data to the top-tier sites,
and
>Unidata will coordinate the further redistribution of data through the
>university community.  The NWS will redistribute Level II data to other
>federal government users from an NWS server located at the Mid Atlantic
>Crossroad Gigapop at the University of Maryland.
>
>"High-performance networking capabilities and other recent
>technological advances have made it possible for the NOAA National
>Weather Service to archive and deliver valuable Level II data from
>multiple radars," Crum said. "This new system will facilitate
>ground-breaking advances by a variety of radar data users."
>
>To make Level II data available, the NWS expanded on an experiment
>known as CRAFT, the Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test Project,
>which was implemented by a coalition of researchers working with NOAA
>during the past few years.  The new system offers a viable alternative
>to using 8mm tapes for archiving the nation's high-resolution radar
>data, cutting delivery time from months to seconds, increasing the
>amount of information saved and decreasing processing costs.  Data will
>be electronically collected and transmitted in real time to NOAA's
>National Climatic Data Center for archiving.
>
>In addition, the use of the Internet2 network infrastructure, including
>the high-performance Abilene backbone network, allows the NWS to
deliver
>significantly greater amounts of high quality data to a geographically
>diverse group of users.  "Data will be available from the 121 NWS
>WSR-88D radars and some of the Department of Defense's WSR-88D radars
in
>the contiguous United States," Crum said.  The data are sent to the NWS
>regional headquarters and then to the Internet2 network via the
Gigapops
>located at North Texas, Utah Education Network, and Great Plains
>Network.  The Level II base data includes high-resolution reflectivity,
>velocity and spectrum width.
>
>More information about receiving Level II data is available from each
>of the four top-tier sites:
>
>- Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas, Dr. Max
>Lennon, (828) 281-1954, maxlennon at ercwc.org
>- Purdue University, Professor Matthew Huber, (765) 494-3258,
>huberm at purdue.edu
>- University of Oklahoma, Professor Kelvin K. Droegemeier, (405)
>325-0453, kkd at ou.edu
>- NWS Telecommunications Operations Center, Julie Hayes, (301) 713-0864
>x 120, Julie.Hayes at noaa.gov
>
>NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety
>through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related
>events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation?s coastal
>and marine resources.
>
>- 30 -
>
>On the Web:
>NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
>National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov
>National Climatic Data Center: www.ncdc.noaa.gov
>Radar Operations Center: http://www.roc.noaa.gov
>
>---------- End Forwarded Message ----------

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Martha E. Maiden
Program Executive for Data Systems
Office of Earth Science
Code YF
NASA Headquarters
Washington DC 20546-0001
USA

voice +1 (202) 358-1078
FAX   +1 (202) 358-2769
Martha Maiden <mmaiden at hq.nasa.gov>
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