The Open System Radar Product Generator (ORPG)

Robert (Bob) Saffle
National Weather Service, Office of Science and Technology

The NWS is deploying the first major upgrade to the WSR-88D infrastructure--the Open System Radar Product Generator (ORPG). The ORPG will have the processing capacity to implement recent, and future, advances in radar science and applications. ORPG also includes a Base Data Distribution Server to make the WSR-88D base data available in real time to other users. In a parallel activity, the NWS, UCAR and the University of Oklahoma are investigating the use of the Internet to distribute WSR-88D base data to universities, the National Climatic Data Center and others, using the LDM services developed by UCAR. Currently, base data from 20 or so WSR-88D sites are being distributed over a combination of the commodity Internet and Internet II (Abilene). The NWS has developed a prototype capability to ingest this flow of data, and process any selected WSR-88D's data with a stand-alone ORPG.

This demonstration will illustrate the features of ORPG, and the potential of the ORPG/LDM/Abilene combination to facilitate university and laboratory use of near real-time WSR-88D base data for research and development of new ideas to improve the utility of WSR-88D data for a variety of meteorological and hydrological applications.

BIO - Robert (Bob) Saffle B.S. Mathematics, Baylor University, 1963. U.S. Air Force forecaster, 1963 -1968. NWS meteorologist, computer specialist, physical scientist: 1969 - present. Main Projects: 1971-1985: D/RADEX/RADAP: early experiments in computer processing of operational NWS radar data: developed VIL, severe weather probability rainfall accumulation, Echo Tops, storm motion estimation, weak echo region display. 1985-1991: NWS member on operational testing team for NEXRAD WSR-88D. 1992-2001: Program Manager for NEXRAD Product Improvement Program: Open System RPG and RDA, planning for Dual Polarization

Science Center Exhibit/Demo Tuesday - 3:10 - 4:00 P.M. Other demo times will be posted at the exhibit.