National Weather Service Currently Conducting Maintenance on Local Radars

The National Weather Service in Huntsville announcing the radar upgrade. (Courtesy: NWS Huntsville)

HYTOP, Ala. (WDEF)- The two primary radars that cover the majority of the News 12 viewing area are currently offline due to the National Weather Service (NWS) conducting scheduled maintenance to improve their lifespan.

The NWS Huntsville’s radar in Hytop, AL in Jackson County and the NWS Morristown’s radar at their office in Morristown, TN outside of Knoxville were taken offline yesterday and will be down through the end of next week as they replace a major part of their WSD-88 radars.

The NWS Huntsville office says that they will be “replacing the radar pedestal, a key component in radar function as it is used for antenna rotation and positioning to capture data in all directions. This upgrade will extend the life of the radar at least 20 more years.”

The Hytop radar in particular is important for the Tennessee Valley as it sits approximately 45 miles southwest of downtown Chattanooga, providing detailed radar coverage for the vast majority of the News 12 viewing area. Its close proximity helps detect wind speeds, rotation, and hail among other severe weather events at a low level in the atmosphere that helps meteorologists at the NWS to issue weather warnings. The Morristown radar does provide another angle primarily for areas north and east of Chattanooga.

While the radars are down, meteorologists at both NWS Huntsville and NWS Morristown will be using adjacent radars to help them continue monitoring the weather along with satellite imagery.  For the News 12 viewing area, the nearest radars are located in the Nashville, Birmingham, and Atlanta areas.

Since these radars are further away, they will not provide as detailed of a picture since radar beams travel up in the atmosphere the further away they get from their radar site, missing what is happening at lower levels of the atmosphere. Both the Hytop and Morristown radars are expected to be operational again by next Friday, September 2, in which they will continue to provide critical weather data for the Tennessee Valley and help meteorologists issue life-saving warnings.