The UK Weather Radar Network is designed to provide continuous, real-time rainfall data over almost the whole of the UK land area and inshore waters. The data can provide valuable information for immediate emergency response in times of extreme weather conditions, as well as providing data to flood planners when managing future risk.

The radar products team based in Exeter is responsible for the delivery of quality controlled NWP products from radar measurements, including Doppler Winds, and reflectivity/refractivity products.

The team is also responsible for improving the precision and defining the uncertainties of precipitation products, through the introduction of revised processing algorithms and ensemble technique. Also providing scientific and technical support to operational teams managing the delivery of observations from the weather radar network.

Key Aims

• Collaborative development of a radar data processing centre for Europe.
• Development of radar products with quantified uncertainty and with quality control tuned to the users application.
• Working with experts in forecasting Research and Development on the assimilation of radar data into high resolution NWP models.
• Evaluation and exploitation of new radar parameters for use in NWP.
• Development of a quality management system to monitor the performance of the radar processing chain from acquisition to delivery.
• Continuous enhancement of the centralised processing facility to meet new requirements arising from the renewal of the radar network and radar applications.

Current projects

• Opera data centre
• Radar quality management system
• Uncertainty and precision of rainfall rate and accumulation estimates.
• Radarnet enhancement.
• Radar products for assimilation in Hi-Res NWP.