MRI Phased Array Radar

　　　

Prompt and accurate observation of severe weather phenomena such as localized torrential rain and tornado is an important issue for the disaster risk reduction. Sophisticated measurement of these phenomena would help us to better understand the underlying physical processes and develop new real-time monitoring and short-term forecasting technologies.

Phased array radar is a state-of-the-art instrument which was installed at Meteorological Research Institute in 2015. The strongest point of this radar is a high-speed volumetric observation which was realized by replacing the vertical mechanical scanning scheme with the digital beam forming technology. In contrast to a conventional weather radar which observes about 30 elevations in 5-10 minutes, phased array radar is able to observe 100 elevations in 10-30 seconds.

By making the use of its high-speed scanning capability, we plan to observe spatiotemporal structure of severe weather phenomena to elucidate their generation mechanisms and develop new disaster prevention information.