The Shreveport National Weather Service radar system received an upgrade of sorts, or at least some refurbishments, over the weekend. The radar is hard to miss when you’re driving near the Shreveport Regional Airport. It looks very similar to a giant soccer ball that encapsulates the radar dish. That’s why it’s referred to as a radome. And for the past 30 years, or so, the dish has been spinning day and night. Meteorologist-in-charge Brad Bryant explains the importance of radar technology. “You know, having to go through an event with showers and storms without a radar nearby to look at, it makes it more difficult from a meteorologist standpoint to issue potentially life-saving warnings.”
On Saturday [January 6], the local National Weather Service crew helped lift the radome up, so they could replace the pedestal, and then return the radome back into place at their station location on Hollywood Avenue near the airport.| The radar had to be turned off on January 3 to work on the system, and the dish had to be disassembled. Bryant says their radar could be back on by the end of week. Neighboring radar systems have covered the area during the repairs.
This work is just part of a larger program to extend the service life of these systems at many of the 122 weather forecast offices across the country. “To do this work across all the radars has been going on for [a] six-year project and it’s roughly $150 million.”
According to the National Weather Service, their Shreveport station has forecast and warning responsibility for forty-eight counties and parishes. This includes 1 county in extreme Southeast Oklahoma, 9 counties in Southwest and Southern Arkansas, 21 counties in East Texas, and 17 parishes in Northwest and North Central Louisiana. The NWS calls this multi-state coverage the County Warning Area (CWA).
Each office produces 7-day forecasts beyond daily high and low temperatures and chances of precipitation. The other forecasts include sky cover, precipitation amounts, snowfall and ice accumulations, dewpoints, along with aviation and fire weather forecasts.
