NOAA Profiler Network and Other Emerging Global Profiler Networks

Abstract

The U.S. NOAA Profiler Network operated by the Forecast Systems Laboratory for more than a decade represents the culmination of several decades of research and development of wind profiling Doppler radars. The NOAA Profiler Network is comprised of 35 tropospheric wind profilers (404/449 MHz) mostly located in the central United States. The infrastructure, built over the years for the NOAA Profiler Network has the flexibility and capacity to handle many other profilers in addition to the 35 NOAA Profiler Network systems. With recent advances in computers, networking and communication technologies, real-time profiler data can be acquired from almost anywhere on the globe. Data from remote sites are submitted to quality control and placed onto the Global Telecommunication System. Currently the Forecast Systems Laboratory is receiving data from about 80 sites in the continental U.S., Alaska, Canada, and along the equator west from South America. The data are routed to operational forecast centers where the data are used in a variety of numerical weather prediction models and also distributed to the local forecast offices to tailor model guidance to local conditions. The data are also placed on the Forecast Systems Laboratory web site http://www.profiler.noaa.gov. Here the data may be viewed in many graphical forms and are also available for downloading to a user’s site in numeric format.