Cooperative Agreement: Operation of the Chill Radar Facility for Research and Education

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Research radars have proven to be an extremely useful tools for a broad range of meteorological topics. Such research has encompassed studies of the precipitation producing characteristics of individual clouds, to investigations of severe thunderstorms, to sampling of vertical wind structure for study of large scale weather patterns, to the analysis of global water budgets. Major practical applications of meteorological radar include the capability of accurate remote sensing of rainfall for hydrological purposes and remote detection of severe weather such as tornadoes, flash floods, hurricanes and microbursts. Indeed, the benefits of these practical applications are the primary reason for fundamental changes in the Nation's weather observing system via installation of the next generation of meteorological radars (NEXRAD) and vertical wind sounding systems (profilers). There is a need to continue state-of-the-art research in meteorological radar and to train the next generation of both research and operational radar meteorologists. This need for accelerated research and educational activities has been emphasized recently in a report issued by the American Meteorological Society based on a meeting focussed on assessing the state of radar meteorological research and education. Accordingly, the National Science Foundation issued a project solicitation for management of a major radar facility in an educational/research setting. The Principal Investigator of the winning proposal has put forth an impressive plan for management of the radar facility in support of both in-house and external (to the institution) educational and research activities in radar meteorology. These activities include interactions between engineers, computer scientists and meteorologists in an effort to continue to push back the frontiers of the science and to train a new generation of radar meteorologists and radar engineers. //