In peak storm season, Washington’s most powerful weather radar is taken down for upgrade – Washington Post

Heat-fueled thunderstorms could erupt over Washington the next few afternoons and evenings, but we may have no help from the regions most powerful radar in monitoring them.

The trade-off is that by Friday, maybe sooner, the region will have an upgraded radar designed to keep track of stormsfordecades to come.

When operating, the radar, in Sterling, Va., detects rain and stormsfrom eastern West Virginia to Marylands Eastern Shore, and from the Mason Dixon line to central Virginia.

But it is out of service due to the installation of an important technological upgrade, according to the National Weather Service.

The upgrade began Monday and is the first of four to ensure the radar is equipped to function through the 2030s. The radar is 25 years old.

A crew will install a new signal processor, which replaces obsolete technology, improves processing speed and data quality, provides added functionality and supports IT security, the Weather Service said in an online statement.

The outage comes at a time when thunderstorms are common in the Washington region and can become severe.In fact, the Washington region has historically witnessed more tornadoes in July than any other month.

During this weeks outage,the Washington region is in the Weather Services marginal risk zone for severe storms both Tuesday and Thursday.

So why the upgrade now instead of, say, the fall, when the weather isnt usually as volatile?

There is never a good time to take our radar out with all the weather threats we have here year-round, said Christopher Strong, warning coordination meteorologist for the Weather Service office serving Washington and Baltimore. In addition, we have to fit our radar in the puzzle with all the other radars [being upgraded] around the nation.

The upgrades are being made to 159 radars at Weather Service offices across the nation over 10 months.

In terms of scheduling, Strong said his office worked to ensure it would be up and running for July 4 and festivities, when storm monitoring is particularly crucial for public safety. Past that, this was the time that worked into the national schedule with all the other competing factors, he said.

While the radar is down, the Weather Service office serving Washington will rely on a network of radars from surrounding offices as well as smaller radars at airports to monitor storms.Strong said the Washington and Baltimore metro areas are well-covered.

For those monitoring the weather at home, this network of radars can stitch together a reasonable representation of storminess, viewableincomposite radar imagery available at several websites, such as:

The upgrade, part of a process known asthe service life extension project, isbeing paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Air Force, in addition to the Weather Service.

The upgrade is going well, and if things continue to go our way, we hope to have it [the radar] back to operational at some point Wednesday ahead of schedule, Strong said.

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In peak storm season, Washington's most powerful weather radar is taken down for upgrade - Washington Post