The Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) was established at the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

in 1989 as one of the first eleven

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Science and Technology Centers. Located at the

National Weather Center The National Weather Center (NWC), on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, is a confederation of federal, state, and academic organizations that work together to better understand events that take place in Earth's atmosphere over a wide rang ...

Norman, Oklahoma Norman () is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, 3rd most populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,026 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the most populous city and the county seat of Clevel ...

, its mission is the development of techniques for the computer-based prediction of high-impact local weather, such as individual spring and winter storms, with the

NEXRAD NEXRAD or Nexrad (Next-Generation Radar) is a network of 159 high-resolution S-band pulse-Doppler radar, Doppler weather radars operated by the National Weather Service (NWS), an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ...

(WSR-88D)

Doppler weather radar A weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern weather radars are mostly pu ...

serving as a key data source.

Activities

Since 1989, scientists in CAPS have developed and improved ARPS (The Advanced Regional Prediction System). ARPS is a comprehensive regional to storm-scale atmospheric modeling/prediction system. It is a complete system that includes a realtime data analysis and assimilation system, the forward prediction

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided in ...

and a post-analysis package. ARPS has been used successfully in many real thunderstorm cases in research.

Development and project

CAPS, along with several other

institutions, is a partner in a new Engineering Research Center led by the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

. The Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) seeks to revolutionize the remote sensing of the lower

troposphere The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth. It contains 80% of the total mass of the Atmosphere, planetary atmosphere and 99% of the total mass of water vapor and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From the ...

, initially via inexpensive, low-power, phased array Doppler weather radars placed on

cell towers A cell site, cell phone tower, cell base tower, or cellular base station is a cellular-enabled mobile device site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed (typically on a radio mast, tower, or other raised structure) ...

and buildings. unique component of this project is that the sensors collaborate with one another and dynamically adjust their characteristics to sense multiple atmospheric phenomena while meeting multiple end user needs in an optimal manner. CAPS also is leading an NSF Large Information Technology Research (ITR) grant that seeks to develop an infrastructure for

mesoscale meteorology Mesoscale meteorology is the study of weather systems and processes at horizontal scales of approximately to several hundred kilometres. It is smaller than synoptic scale meteorology, synoptic-scale systems (1,000 km or larger) but larger than Mi ...

research and education. Known as Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD), a transforming element of this project is the ability for analysis tools, forecast models, and data repositories to function as dynamically adaptive, on-demand systems that can change configuration rapidly and automatically in response to the evolving weather; respond immediately to user decisions based upon the weather problem at hand; and steer remote observing systems to optimize data collection and forecast/warning quality.

References

External links

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ARPSNSSLNWCAtmospheric Radar Research Center
Meteorological research institutes Tornado Storm University of Oklahoma 1989 establishments in Oklahoma {{UOklahoma-stub