Radar Product Improvement

The Radar Product Improvement (RPI) Team within the ROC Engineering Branch provides radar functionality and interoperability improvements between radar systems and Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS). RPI is physically located in Silver Spring, MD at the NWS Headquarters to foster coordination and interactions with AWIPS and other NWS enterprise systems and programs. The primary focus of RPI includes:

• Maintain awareness of advanced radar technologies; develop ConOps and requirements
• Maintain Radar Functional Requirements (RFR) document
• Manage tri-agency efforts to research, develop, and implement new radar capabilities and improvements to existing functionality
• Implement software changes on WSR-88D RPG (aka, NEXRAD), Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) Supplemental Product Generator (SPG), and AWIPS
• Conduct radar-AWIPS-enterprise interoperability testing and operational troubleshooting
• Maintain and distribute Common Operations and Development Environment (CODE)
  • https://www.weather.gov/code88d/
• Support formal testing of operational software releases for WSR-88D, TDWR SPG, and AWIPS
  • Provide operationally representative test environments, software versions, radar types, products from live / playback of radar data cases, and subject matter expertise (SMEs).
• Support ROC Hotline and AWIPS Network Control Facility (NCF) in troubleshooting operational issues
• Coordinate changes, monitors performance and troubleshoots radar Level-III product collection and dissemination

Near-Term WSR-88D Data Quality Improvement Projects

• Staggered Pulse Repetition Time (SPRT) -- to replace mid elevation Batch cuts (1.8 to 6.4 degrees elevation) - Field Test began January 2026 (SCN 25-85).
  • No purple haze for the polarimetric variables, and less for Doppler moments
  • Less velocity aliasing with Extended Nyquist velocity up to 116 knots
  • Reflectivity and polarimetric variables with lower variance
• Clutter Environment Analysis using Adaptive Processing (CLEAN-AP) - Field Test Began January 2026 on SPRT elevation scans.
  • Four levels of filter aggressiveness based on clutter strength
  • Improves ground clutter mitigation
  • Required for Staggered PRT
• Weather Environment Thresholding (WET) -- included with CLEAN-AP
  • Reduces clutter filter induced bias when signal is dominated by weather
• Hybrid Correlation Coefficient (HCC) Estimator - benefits low elevation cuts and weak signal areas on other elevations
  • Reduces the amount of invalid (pink fringe) CC at low SNR

Near-Term WSR-88D Weather Algorithm Improvement Projects

• Surface Hydrometeor classification Algorithm (SHC) - Build 25
  • Determine hydrometer class at the surface, and add classification of Ice Pellets (IP), Freezing Rain (ZR), and Snow/IP mix (MX)
• Long Term Average Reflectivity (LTR) - Build 25 (SCN 26-54)
  • Mitigate persistent contamination from wind turbines, highways, ground clutter
  • Correct Hydrometeor Classification Algorithm (HCA) errors
• Enhanced Melting Layer Detection Algorithm
  • Enhance detection performance in the situations of low and sloping Melting Layers, and sharp snow / rain boundaries
• Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE)
  • Refinements to the R(A) rain estimation approach
  • Mitigation of the bright band contamination
  • QPE in snow and mixed precipitation
• Hybrid Scan Estimator (HSE) - benefits low elevation cuts (below 1.5 °)
  • Blends polarimetric data from the surveillance split cut with better quality data from the Doppler cut
  • Quality improvement for ZDR, PHI, and CC under certain conditions
  • Data with low-to-medium SNR and high CC or wide spectrum width is improved most

Radar / NWS Enterprise Systems Interoperability Projects

• Improve performance of routine and one-time radar product requests from AWIPS
• Update radar product suite disseminated on NOAAPORT/SBN and/or RPCCDS (implementation data)
  • Additional Lower Elevation sites (SCN 26-20) with WSR-88D Build 24.1: KBOX (Boston, MA) 0.3 °. March 2026