Performance characteristics of wind profiling radars

Doppler radars used to measure winds in the troposphere and lower stratosphere for weather analysis and forecasting are lower-sensitivity versions of mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere radars widely used for research. The term wind profiler is used to denote these radars because measurements of vertical profiles of horizontal and vertical wind are their primary function. It is clear that wind profilers will be in widespread use within five years: procurement of a network of 30 wind profilers is underway. The Wave Propagation Laboratory (WPL) has operated a small research network of radar wind profilers in Colorado for about two and one-half years. The transmitted power and antenna aperture for these radars is given. Data archiving procedures have been in place for about one year, and this data base is used to evaluate the performance of the radars. One of the prime concerns of potential wind profilers users is how often and how long wind measurements are lacking at a given height. Since these outages constitute an important part of the performance of the wind profilers, they are calculated at three radar frequencies, 50-, 405-, and 915-MHz, (wavelengths of 6-, 0.74-, and 0.33-m) at monthly intervals to determine both the number of outages at each frequency and annual variations in outages.