The Big Day Arrives. The Washington Coastal Radar is Operational!

Today I received a wonderful email from Brad Colman, head of the Seattle National Weather Service Forecast Office:   the new coastal radar, located just north of Hoquiam, is now fully operational and the data is flowing to the outside world.

This radar, on top of Langley Hill, has been updated to include dual-polarization, which will allow a whole new collection of valuable products.

Enough talk, here are some examples.  Today there is a band of precipitation offshore that is slamming into Vancouver Island.   Want to see?   Check below.  Pretty impressive...and you will notice the precipitation band stretches south to offshore of northern Oregon.

 Here is what the Seattle radar shows--virtually nothing over the offshore waters south of Forks.

Here is a long range view of precipitation from the new radar.   This is amazing!  We can see another band two-thirds up Vancouver Island--some of it 400 km (250 miles) away.

All this stuff is online for your viewing pleasure (click on links)

National Weather Service site
UW Radar Site
and many others will be available soon.

For the first time, residents of the Washington coast now have what many of us have enjoyed for years---real time radar coverage.  And just as important, we can finally see the details of storms approaching our coast.   There is only one thing left to do on the radar--to turn on the zero-degree elevation angle scanning that will greatly increase its offshore range and low-level coverage.  This crucial enhancement is scheduled to be initiated during the next two months.

For more background information check out the radar website:

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~cliff/Langleyradar.html