Potential advantages of the spaced antenna method for operational wind profiling, part 3.1B

The problem of very short-range forecasting is twofold. It is necessary to understand the processes that are being forecasted, and data appropriate to the scale of interest has to be generated. Coherent VHF and UHF radars are being used for operational wind profiling and are providing part of the solution to the data-acquisition problem. The Profiler system operated by the Wave Propagation Laboratory at NOAA has already shown great promise. As a result, plans are being considred for expanding the network of radars to cover a larger area of the country. The Profiler uses what is commonly referred to as the Doppler method for measuring winds. Two beams are pointed off-vertical, and the Doppler shift of the echo determines the line-of-sight velocity. The velocity components along the beams are then translated to horizontal wind components. A number of possible advantages of the spaced antennas (SA) method for operational wind profiling are discussed.