New Nationwide NWS Radar Technology is a “Game Changer” in Terms of Depicting Where Rain, Hail, and Snow are Falling and How Much Has Fallen. 

Oklahoma City and Norman, OK – June 20, 2011.  Weather industry leader Weather Decision Technologies is demonstrating its state-of-the-science Dual-Pol Radar Suite of Automated Analysis Algorithms dubbed POLARIS (Polarimetric Radar Identification System) within its best-selling interactive iMap® weather map.  The POLARIS Dual-Pol solution revolutionizes the ability to automatically determine the exact location, and how hard, it is raining, snowing, hailing and even determines where birds and bugs are flying, and other severe weather hazards such as tornadic “debris balls”.  POLARIS is WDT’s proprietary, patent-pending solution, based upon the latest research and provides full super-resolution. This equates to 2X better resolution than products delivered through the National Weather Service NEXRAD Information Dissemination Service (NIDS), and  greater accuracy for determining precipitation rates and amounts.

POLARIS is set to greatly enhance the nation’s broadcasters’ ability to improve television weather programming by offering highly accurate, crisp depictions of precipitation types in WDT’s iMapLive! on-air broadcasting tool.  As each NWS radar site is upgraded to dual-pol capability throughout 2011 and 2012, POLARIS will immediately leverage the new dual-polarized signals within its advanced suite of processing algorithms.  

“Current U.S. weather radars transmit and receive horizontally polarized signals. This maximizes the radar’s sensitivity to liquid hydrometeors,” said Dr. Chris Porter, Chief Scientist, Radar Applications, at WDT.  “With the new dual polarimetric upgrade, weather radars transmit and receive both horizontally and vertically polarized signals. This provides the capability of detecting and differentiating between rain, snow, hail, birds, bugs, ground clutter and other radar targets.  This also provides significantly improved accuracy of precipitation rates, allowing better detection of flash flood and heavy snow events, helping to determine the exact location of large hail and delineating areas of freezing rain with amazing accuracy,” said Porter. 

POLARIS will be on display at the 39th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Conference on Broadcast Meteorology, taking place in Oklahoma City this week. This is the first time that the National Weather Service (NWS) Dual-Pol radar data has been shown by a private company on a fully interactive Google-based map.

Beyond POLARIS, WDT is also demonstrating its iMapWeather Radio iPhone application and platform launched last month.  Since launch, the mobile application has delivered over 3 million emergency alerts for severe weather, using its unique “follow-me” alerting technology for text and voice alerts, based on sophisticated location-based services.  iMapWeather Radio is being presented as part of a paper on weather alerting systems and Location-Based Services being delivered by WDT at the affiliated AMS Conference on Weather Warnings and Communication.  

The company’s Forecast Override technology for interactive iMap sites will again be on display, offering on-air meteorologists the ability to override automated weather forecasts using their own local knowledge and expertise and having those forecasts be used for on-air, on-line and on-the-go mobile applications.  Hurricane products for on-air, online, and on-the-go mobile applications will also be on display, as well as the company’s unique iMapSocial Facebook solutions for broadcasters.

About Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. (WDT)                                                                       

WDT's iMap® services provide dynamic interactive and mobile weather mapping solutions for the world's leading local media and Internet companies. WDT is a global leader in providing state-of-the-science weather detection, nowcasting, and forecasting systems. http://www.wdtinc.com  and www.weatherforensics.com. 

Contact: 
Matthew Piette, WDT
512-736-8316
mpiette@wdtinc.com