WSR-88D Radar Upgrade

Overview

On May 22, 2018 our electronics staff upgraded the software for our radar (KMVX-Mayville) to RDA/RPG Build 18.0. This software build will eventually be rolled out to all other NWS WSR-88D radars across the country. This may be transparent to most, but higher end users may notice some differences. Most obviously, there will be some additional scanning strategies (what we call VCP's) and a few older ones have been retired.

The two new "VCP's" you may notice will be 35 and 215, while older VCP's 11, 211, 21, 221 have been retired. We still have 31,32, 121, 12, and 212 available and they will continue to be utilized when appropriate. The exciting part will be what 35 and 215 bring to the table in replacing some of the older "legacy" scanning strategies. Effectively these new ways of scanning combine all the benefits of the older strategies that have been retired, and improve over them giving us more options to improve radar quality for various weather situations. Our new default for lighter precipitation or "clear air" situations will be VCP 35, and our new default for standard precipitation events will be VCP 215. We will still primarily rely on VCP 212 for severe/convective situations. The other older VCP's that remain (31,32,121, and 12) are still useful for very specific weather situations, and may still be utilized on occasion.

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