Eric L. Ice — Clerical/ Administrative

Nancy Beck — Outstanding Community Service

Tanyelle M. Casper — Outstanding Customer Service

Steven Smith — Supervisory

Christina Horvat — Supervisory (Dept. of Defense)

William H. Greenwood — Administrative, Technical, & Professional, GS-8  and below

Mark Wakeam — Administrative, Technical, & Professional, GS-8 and below (Dept. of Defense)

Terrell “B” Ballard — Administrative, Technical, & Professional, GS-9 and above

Darcelle “Darcy” Saxion — Administrative, Technical, & Professional, GS-9 and above (Dept. of Defense)

Washington Coast Team- Outstanding Team

Terrell “B” Ballard was chosen from ten nominees as the winner for the Administrative, Technical, & Professional, GS-9 and above category. “B,” as he is known around the office, is the team leader and recognized expert for the radar technicians who perform both emergency and routine maintenance on the 160 NEXRAD radar systems world-wide.  He is known as a “hands on” leader and is the lead on all of the most difficult on-site repairs.  Ballard also assists with the 24-hour customer service hotline that provides technical assistance via phone with a focus on repairing radars after major equipment failures. The fleet of current radars has a goal of 96 percent operational availability and Ballard’s team is directly credited with keeping that metric at an amazing 99 percent. He is also active in his community as a member of both the Masons and Shriners.

Congratulations to Ballard and all award nominees. Your hard work and excellence in the community does not go unnoticed!

That's no storm. That's a wind farm.

It’s time for yet another podcast of… That Weather Show… brought to you by the NOAA Weather Partners.  I’m Angelyn Kolodziej.

It’s always raining near Spearville, Kansas.  At least it appears to be when forecasters like Larry Ruthi look at radar displays.  Turns out, what looks like thunderstorms are actually rotating wind turbine blades.  Wind farms are popping up all over as renewable energy becomes a high priority for the nation.  But when they’re built near existing radars, new challenges arise for the NOAA National Weather Service.

Larry has worked at the Dodge City, Kansas Weather Forecast Office for more than sixteen years and has plenty of experience with this issue.

Wind Farm near Spearville, KS

Ruthi: “A wind farm on radar looks very much like an echo from a precipitation target or a shower or thunderstorm.  As the meteorological target moves through a wind farm – particularly if its close to the radar site – the return from the wind farm and the blades that are rotating around the antennas on the wind farm will mix with the return from the showers of t-storms and its a particular problem if its a severe weather event.”

So what’s causing this?  Let’s step back for a minute and talk about how the radar works.  A signal is sent out into the atmosphere.  That signal bounces off things like raindrops or hailstones and returns to the antenna.  The data are displayed for weather forecasters to use.  But the signal also reflects from non-weather objects like trees and mountains.  By detecting the lack of motion, radar can easily filter out these non-moving objects.  However, wind farms near the radar create a unique challenge.

Ruthi: “The towers don’t move but the blades rotate around the tops of those towers.  It makes it very difficult for our algorithm to filter those out.  So there’s a difficult conundrum that we’re dealing with there in trying to filter out the non-meteorological targets and still retaining as best we can the returns that we have from the meteorological targets.”

Wind turbine blade clutter near Montezuma, Kansas resembles a tornado signature.

The cluttered displays can be misleading for anyone using the radar data.  They can also affect the accuracy of forecasts.  Severe weather events like microbursts and tornadoes are sometimes difficult to identify.  Estimating rainfall in the area is also a challenge.

To work around this issue, forecasters must know the location and characteristics of wind farms on radar.  Scanning at higher altitudes can give forecasters a view above the rotating turbine blades.  Additional cooperative efforts may also be possible.

Ruthi: “There’s perhaps an opportunity to work together with the wind farm owners and managers to perhaps – for a short period of time each year when severe thunderstorms affect the wind farm area – to shut down the turbines that we would then be able to examine uncontaminated returns throughout the entire radar umbrella and make valid decisions without the problem of dealing with the wind farms.”

As for future wind farm development, it’s all about location, location, location.  Research shows wind farm impacts generally decrease the farther they are from the radar.  Reaching out to developers at early planning stages is a key focus for the National Weather Service.  By working together, everyone wins.  Larry and other forecasters have a clear view of the weather.  Developers build wind farms in strategic places.  And the public has access to cheaper, cleaner energy AND the best weather information possible.

Thanks for listening to another podcast of… That Weather Show… brought to you by the NOAA Weather Partners.

For more information about wind farm interaction with NEXRAD radar, visit: http://www.roc.noaa.gov/WSR88D/WindFarm/WindFarm_Index_GreatFalls.aspx?wid=*

Capt. Chuck Parish -  Technical, Professional, Admin. DOD GS-9 and above
Dave Zittel – Technical, Professional, Admin. Civilian GS-9 and above
Cheryl Stephenson – Supervisory-Civilian

Congratulations to our colleagues!

Dave Zittel, Employee of the Month, August, 2008

Dave Zittel, meteorologist with the Radar Operations Center in Norman, Okla., has been named the August Employee of the Month by the NOAA National Weather Service. This national award recognizes Zittel’s outstanding technical contribution to development of a new weather radar technique that has greatly enhanced NEXRAD weather radar.

Weather forecast offices and forecast centers can now employ extended radar range to provide better severe storm coverage, while recovering large amounts of wind velocity data for improved services. He accomplished this ambitious goal through timely transition of a new radar capability implemented via upgraded NEXRAD weather radar software. Dave contributed outstanding leadership and ingenuity towards developing and testing a new technique to recover lost data while extending the range coverage for storm detection.

As a result, he established a brilliantly innovative approach to an old problem. Dave significantly improved the NEXRAD system’s ability to deliver enhanced life-saving products, enabling forecast offices and flood prediction centers to apply this new capability to reduce storm-related deaths and injuries and serve commerce.

The ROC provides centralized meteorological, computer software, maintenance and engineering support for all 158 operational NEXRAD (WSR-88D) radar systems deployed worldwide and is supported by the departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Defense.

The FEB awards are part of Public Service Recognition Week, and honor the Oklahoma Federal Employees of the Year, publicizing to the general public, as well as to the federal family, the high caliber of devoted employees in the federal service.

The FEB director presented the awards during a luncheon at the Waterford Marriott Hotel in Oklahoma City recently. “This recognition is well-deserved,” said Rich Vogt, Radar Operations Center director. “I’ve got great people doing good things for the nation’s radar program. I am proud to nominate them for these awards.”

Lt. Col. William R. George received the state of Oklahoma Employee of the Year award in the Supervisory–Dept. of Defense category. He is currently the chief of the ROC’s applications branch and the organization’s senior military officer. As the executive secretary of the NEXRAD weather radar technical advisory committee, George ensured technology transfer activities were well orchestrated through coordinated interaction with operational weather radar users, scientists, and researchers from the government and academia.

Additional ROC personnel were nominated for awards in the following categories:

• Ed Berkowitz (Supervisory, Civilian)
• Lt. Kelly Barber (Technical, Professional, Admin., DOD, GS-9 and above)
• Nancy Olson (Technical, Professional, Admin., Civilian, GS-9 and above)
• Staff Sgt. Gary SanSoucie, (Clerical, DOD)
• Cindy Laffoon (Clerical, Civilian)
• Tammy Buie (Technical, Professional & Admin., GS-8 and below)
• Staff Sgt. Robert Parrish (Technical, Professional & Admin., GS-8 and below)
• Mark Albertelly (Outstanding Customer Service)
• Tech. Sgt. Scott Kelly (Outstanding Community Service)
• Monte Keel (Outstanding Employee with a Disability)

The Radar Operations Center is responsible for modifying and enhancing the WSR-88D systems during their operational life to meet changing requirements, technology advances and improved understanding of the application of these systems to real-time weather operations. ROC also operates and maintains WSR-88D test systems for the development of hardware and software upgrades to enhance maintenance, operation and provide new functionality. The facility houses a 24-hour, 7-days a week NEXRAD help desk that assists field technicians with maintenance support. The ROC also provides or arranges for depot-level maintenance support for major repairs at the field sites that require specialized training and equipment.

The National Weather Service is an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department. NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and environmental stewardship of our nation’s coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and nearly 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes.

On the web:
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
NOAA’s National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov

The award recognized the team for “development of a national real-time radar data archival and Internet2 delivery system for university, government and private sectors.” Taking advantage of high performance networking capabilities and other recent technological advances, the team successfully transferred the technology from research into NOAA’s National Weather Service, private sector operations and research and education facilities.

Team members are: Dr. Timothy D. Crum, Tom Sandman and Philip Cragg from the NOAA’s National Weather Service; Kevin E. Kelleher from NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research; and Stephen A. Del Greco, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.

“This technology transfer effort was unique because of the wide collaboration of individuals and organizations needed and because of the significant and numerous tangible benefits to business, universities, other federal agencies and foreign countries,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “This new system will facilitate ground-breaking advances by a variety of weather radar data users.”

As a result of this technology transfer effort, higher resolution and more detailed weather products will be developed, further enhancing the NWS mission of protecting lives and property. The NWS announced in April it is distributing the high-resolution/Level II data from the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) through four Internet2 top-tier sites. These data represent the highest resolution picture of what the radar system is “seeing” in real time.

To make Level II data available in real time, the NWS expanded on an experiment known as CRAFT, the Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test Project. The experiment was implemented by a coalition of researchers from The University of Oklahoma’s Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, Internet2, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s Unidata, and other organizations working with NOAA during the past several years. The new system will meet NWS requirements for archive and real-time Level II data applications.

The use of the Internet2 network infrastructure, including the high-performance Abilene backbone network, also allows NWS to deliver significantly greater amounts of high quality data to a geographically diverse group of users in real time. Data are available from the 121 NWS WSR-88D radars and three of the Department of Defense’s WSR-88D radars in the contiguous United States.

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 NWS is using the Unidata public domain Local Data Manager technology to collect and redistribute Level II data. The NWS will send copies of the Level II data to the Internet2 top-tier sites (University of Oklahoma, Purdue University, Educational Consortium of the Western Carolinas, and University of Maryland). Unidata will coordinate the further redistribution of data through the university community. The top-tier sites are available to provide the unaltered Level II data stream at the cost of dissemination.

“This project is a great example of what can be done when various branches of the government work together with the university and private sectors for a common goal,” Kelleher said.

Significant contributions to the project came from Kelvin Droegemeier from the University of Oklahoma; Linda Miller, Mohan Ramamurthy, and David Faulkner from UCAR Unidata; Guy Almes from Abilene; and Mark Benner and Karen Cooper from the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

On the Web:
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov
National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
Radar Operations Center: http://www.roc.noaa.gov

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@ercwc.org
• Purdue University, Professor Matthew Huber, (765) 494-3258, huberm@purdue.edu
• University of Oklahoma, Professor Kelvin K. Droegemeier, (405) 325-0453, kkd@ou.edu
• NWS Telecommunications Operations Center, Julie Hayes, (301) 713-0864 x 120, Julie.Hayes@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.

On the Web:
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov
National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
Radar Operations Center: http://www.roc.noaa.gov

An event to recognize all of the agencies involved in the development, testing and deployment of the radar upgrade was held in Norman this morning. Brig. Gen. Jack Kelly USAF (Ret.), director of the National Weather Service, attended and presented the plaques.

During the upgrade, a new Open Radar Product Generator (ORPG) replaced technology designed in the mid-1980s. The radar product generator is the part of NEXRAD that processes the raw data gathered by the radar, performs data quality checks, creates radar images and products for display, and sends those products to display systems such as the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System used by NOAA’s National Weather Service.

“Ultimately, all Americans benefit from this upgrade,” said Brig. Gen. Jack Kelly USAF (Ret.), director of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “The ORPG installation, coupled with continued improvements to the hardware and software used in the NEXRAD system, will give forecasters higher resolution radar images, higher quality data and the ability to scan storms in new ways. This improves the National Weather Service’s ability to provide forecasts and warnings of severe weather.”

Additional benefits of the new ORPG system include easier field maintenance, faster technology upgrades, larger volumes of data for users, and the ability to release new software to the field more frequently.

The NEXRAD Doppler weather radar is a key component of the $4.5 billion National Weather Service modernization program. NEXRAD Doppler weather radar, in part, has helped National Weather Service forecasters double the lead time for tornado warnings to an 11-minute average in 2002. Increasing lead times for issuing warnings will potentially increase the numbers of lives saved.

The Radar Operations Center in Norman, Okla., provides centralized meteorological, software, maintenance and engineering support for all NEXRAD systems. More information about the Radar Operations Center is available online at http://www.roc.noaa.gov.

NOAA’s National Weather Service is the primary source of weather data, forecasts and warnings for the United States and its territories. The National Weather Service operates the most advanced weather and flood warning and forecast system in the world, helping to protect lives and property and enhance the national economy. To learn more about National Weather Service, please visit http://www.nws.noaa.gov.

NOAA’s Radar Operations Center recently donated about 40 computers to Douglass High School in Oklahoma City to replace some of the equipment destroyed in a fire last year. These computers have already been installed in the school. Later this year, NOAA staff, working on their own time, will install a school radio station donated by Dwight Lee of DBZ & Lee, an organization that works closely with the ROC.

In addition, another NOAA organization, the Storm Prediction Center, donated 20 surplus computers to Oklahoma emergency management agencies in need of the equipment for official use. This contribution will allow the older and slower systems, which SPC replaced, to serve and protect 20 different Oklahoma counties. An idea of the SPC, this effort was made possible through collaboration with the National Weather Service Norman Forecast Office and the Oklahoma Emergency Managers Association.

“I can’t think of a better way to extend the productive life of old computers,” said Joe Schaefer, director of NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center. “The benefits to our local communities make these projects worth every effort.”

The NEXRAD Employees Association was created in 1990 and each year conducts several events benefiting more than 150 military, government and contract employees who work at the Radar Operations Center in Norman. The ROC serves as the national headquarters for weather radar operational support for the Departments of Commerce (National Weather Service), Defense and Transportation (Federal Aviation Administration).

Proceeds from the association’s last three golf tournaments have been dedicated toward providing comforts for Rosewood Manor residents. In past years, Santa and his elves have visited the facility, bearing a clothing gift, clock radio or calendar, and a personalized greeting card for each of the more than 130 residents. This year, the patients’ needs were better met by replacing an old 25-inch tabletop TV in the community room with a new larger screen version delivered just before Thanksgiving Day.