C.A.S.A. de Weather?…..
This one’s aimed at HS University….. I heard that they have an outstanding meteorology department there with direct connection to the National Storms lab in Norman, Oklahoma…. I caught a little bit on this on a local TV weather broadcast…. C.A.S.A., which I assume is an abbreviation for something (hence the periods I put in), I missed that part, so I may even have the name wrong…. I do know in Spanish it means “home”, I think?…. Anyway, it’s supposed to be a low-level radar system that improves tornado and severe weather forecasting, as opposed to the radar they are now using , which monitors only high-level formations…. It gives up to a 30-minute reaction time to approaching severe weather and tornadoes, and cuts false warnings down from 75% to around 17% which would improve people’s confidence tremendously…. They are supposed to install 4 of these new experimental systems in Oklahoma for testing…..
Can anyone at HSU (or anybody that has more info than I) give us more insight and details on this?… I hate running from tornadoes, even false ones… Is it real?… Will it work?…. We, the people of “Tornado Alley” would rather be in a bowling alley than under it this spring…..
March 14th, 2006 at 10:52 am
The news story was probably associated with a roll-out event they had down in Chickasha a few days ago. CASA (Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere) is a big 10 year engineering research center sponsored by NSF. It’s run out of the University of Massachusetts, but there is a big presence at OU. Because of the large distance between weather radars (NEXRAD and otherwise) and the curvature of the earth, ~72% of the radar coverage is at levels above 1 km altitude. So there’s very little sampling of the low level circulations that are associated with tornadoes. What CASA is trying to do is to put out a network of small, low power, cheap radars up on cell towers in an attempt to get a better sampling of the low level atmospheric structures. There are data sampling, numerical prediction, data mining components to the program, in addition to networking efforts to deal with the enormous amount of data generated. Improving tornado warnings is just one of the goals. Their 17% number is an estimate, and I’m not sure what it’s based on.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I knew I could trust Professor HuskySooner to come through for me!….. That’s why the man has a University named after him!….. Thanks for all the neat info, and please keep us updated as to it’s effectiveness….. I don’t like being a mole this time of year in Oklahoma…… Again, thanks, HS, for a job well done…. GRADE = A+……
March 18th, 2006 at 1:06 am
I just saw an ad for News 9 and the CASA technology. As a survivor of the May 8 2003 F4 I am for anything that gives more warning time, We had Approx. 15Min on that one although I was following it on radar from formation to the 15Min window. But with that short of time from official warning we barely had time to evacuate our warehouse and the GM plant and seek shelter, And where we went we were EXTREMELY LUCKY we survived. I think a mole would have sounded pretty good at the time. Thanks for the informed explanation on this topic HS, Take an attaboy out of petty cash.