STORM2K

Be in the know with BN9's Klystron 9 radar

Bay News 9 has made a huge leap forward in providing you with the most accurate weather forecasts in the Bay area.

The station has unveiled Klystron 9, the most advanced, most powerful, highest resolution broadcast weather radar in the world.

Bay News 9 chief meteorologist Mike Clay said Klystron 9 is more accurate than any other weather radar at any TV station anywhere.

"This is the biggest advance in radar since Doppler," Clay said. "Dual-pol Doppler, which we installed in October 2007, was the first step, but this was the full gamut of the radar we were after."

Here is the rest of the article

Numerous things popped out to me.
--The range is twice that of the NWS at 150miles or beyond, and the NWS is still behind the game with Dual Pole Technology.
--Klystron 9 combines, for the first time in history, a dual Polarimetric radar, Klystron tube, Pulse Compression technology, and a 1.25 million watt transmitter.!!!
--It has 40X the resolution of NEXRAD
--The system removes anything that doesn't move, so buildings, trees, etc. don't show on the radar
--Hurricane detection is MUCH better, the range makes it great, but the penetration and dual pole makes it amazing.

Also posted at that link are a bunch of videos that are must sees.

Maybe Josh Linker can give us more insight. Like, how much did this cost? Must have been well into the millions. I wish it was better to look at, since its just up the street from me. Keeping Tampa Bay on the top of the world in weather, hopefully the other stations will begin to follow suit.

Along with the on air radar upgrade, the Bay News 9 website, and on air weather on the 9 formats have been changed for the better. There are a few things that need to be worked on, like the loops with go much too quickly, but other than that, it is a step above all others in the Bay area.

Here is that site: http://www.baynews9.com/Klystron9.html

It will be very interesting to watch during its first test tomorrow.

this looks really cool. i love bay news 9. this thing should really rock when tropical weather threatens but I'll also be curious to see how it performs in a normal summertime convective regime with seabreeze/outflow boundary interactions. Good luck to Mike Clay, Josh Linker and the whole bay news 9 weather team.

We'll see how well the "Klystron 9" works the next time a major hurricane passes west of Tampa.

If this new radar can actually penetrate the far eyewall and give a complete sounding of the hurricane's inner core, then this is indeed the dawn of a new era for meteorology.

Imagine seeing a radar signature of Ivan's landfall, Dennis collapsing, or Elena making a 270-degree turn! For that matter, a complete radar image of all 4 quadrants would have been invaluable during Ike's landfall. I think the only truly complete-looking hurricanes I've ever seen on radar were Andrew and Charley.

I'd imagine this system will also produce some amazing images the next time a tornado outbreak occurs in central Florida, but we will have to wait and see.

We are very excited about Kylystron 9 here. We will now have the ability to view LIVE velocity data which by itself is amazing, but now we can go out 150 miles with velocity data. Of course with curvature that would be off the surface.
We had it in test mode behind the scenes since November and were seeing amazing range.
It did a great job with the cold front last Wednesday and we are eager to put it to good use this summer. Hopefully no canes, but just t-storms will be something to see, especially with their pulse nature.

As far as our website comments, we are working on the speed of some of those loops.
Have a great day all.
Josh

excellent , cant wait to view it when there is activity around.

I am guessing not, but will you be putting up any of the other uses of Klystron 9, such as the 3D radar or velocity data, up on line? For me, I may be at school all day, but I may have five minutes to go online to look at the weather. Putting that stuff online would help out quite a bit. I'm sure the weather center at school would be grateful too.

--Also other than the loop issues. I noticed the images are unlinkable. I wish we were able to send the images to other people.

With that front moving in, I wanted to compare the very light showers in the northern gulf 80-100 miles NW of me. There is a stark contrast between Klystron 9 and the NWS radar. Klystron 9 is much fuller, and has much less ground clutter. It shows the good range of Klystron 9

*TrekkerCC hands Mr. Fact789 "The new Tampa Radar Dome"


Couldn't resist.