THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080427
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Hurricane Allison was only a disorderly swirl of rain squalls when it swept over North Carolina and eastern Virginia this week, but National Weather Service meteorologists said the storm provided a good test of new radars designed to protect the Mid-Atlantic coast.
``Everything worked fine with our coordination,'' said Stephen Harned, meteorologist in charge of the U.S. weather station in Raleigh, a key link in a new network of doppler radars that have been installed in the past year.
The WSR-88-D radars can reach out as far as 250 miles to track approaching hurricanes - and tornadoes - and the doppler equipment allows forecasters to look inside towering clouds and measure wind direction and velocity around a storm center.
The Raleigh WSR-88-D is linked with similar equipment at Newport, N.C., near Morehead City, and another 88-D at Wilmington, as well as a new radar installation at Wakefield, Va., that covers the Tidewater area. All of the radars can exchange graphic color pictures of storm development and can pinpoint threatened areas in individual counties.
``All of our radar personnel in North Carolina have completed training in operation of the 88-D's - including me,'' said Harned.
``I was like a kid with a new toy checking out the approach of Allison,'' Harned said.
Coverage by the new radars overlaps along the coast from Wilmington to the Eastern Shore and forecasters expect more accurate hurricane landfall predictions, Harned said.
``Everything worked fine down here,'' said Thomas Kriehn, chief meteorologist at the new Newport installation.
Kriehn's radar crew will bear the brunt of tracking typical Atlantic hurricanes that sweep up the coast, often making landfall along the Outer Banks.
The Newport-Morehead City radar was commissioned by the National Weather Service May 4.
WSR-88-D radars at Wilmington, Raleigh and Wakefield are operational and part of the hurricane warning network but the equipment will not be formally commissioned until later this year, Kriehn said. by CNB