Chief Meteorologist David Finfrock took to the airwaves Monday to unveil the new StormTrack 5, which boasts 1 million watts of power.
"This is something I'm really excited about as we go through the winter and into the spring," Finfrock said. "We'll be putting this to good use."
Only a handful of TV stations in the country offer radar that strong, and only one other offers such a detailed radar display.
That station is in Oklahoma City, where a tornado hit in May. As pictured, Finfrock uses a radar display from that storm to demonstrate what our new radar will look like when it's tracking severe weather.
Specifically, Finfrock points out the "hook echo" of the tornado, not normally seen so clearly with less-powerful radar.
Since storms typically sweep into our area from the west, we have stationed our new StormTrack 5 in Ellis County.
"To make this the best possible radar display for the purpose, we have sighted it just to the southeast of Dallas, giving us a clear view of the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area," Finfrock said.
The new radar resolution is eight times more detailed than its predecessor.
