Observations of Severe Local Storms and Tornadoes with the Atmospheric Imaging Radar

• DOI: 10.1175/bams-d-15-00266.1
• Publication Date: 2016-09-06T20:33:21Z
• Authors: David J. Bodine; Timothy A. Bonin; Bradley Isom; Robert D. Palmer; Boon Leng Cheong; Javier Lujan; Andrew Mahre; Andrew D. Byrd
• Keywords: Weather radar; Severe weather

Abstract Mobile radar platforms designed for observation of severe local storms have consistently pushed the boundaries spatial and temporal resolution in order to allow detailed analysis storm structure evolution. Digital beamforming, or imaging, is a technique that similar nature photograwphic camera, where data samples from different spaces at same range are collected simultaneously. This allows rapid volumetric update rates compared radars scan with single narrow beam. The Atmospheric Imaging Radar (AIR) mobile X-band (3.14-cm wavelength) imaging weather transmits vertical, 20° fan beam uses 36-element receive array form instantaneous range–height indicators (RHIs) native beamwidth 1° × 1°. Rotation azimuth 90° updates under 6 s, while advanced pulse compression techniques achieve 37.5-m resolution. AIR has been operational since 2012 on tornadoes supercells ranges as close km, resulting high observations storms. use atmospheric exploited detail rapidly evolving phenomena difficult observe traditional scanning radars.