In the second half of June, the radar MMR-50 installed in Goczalkowice-Zdroj in Poland was replaced with a newer generation of mini meteorological radar developed and manufactured by MicroStep-MIS. The installation of MMR-116 was carried out in collaboration with local technicians and the support of our radar development team. The radar will serve Ekoenergia Silesia S.A. distributing the radar data to other users in the country.
The replacement and the associated installation of the new radar proceeded according to plan and took 2.5 days. First, it was necessary to replace the older device on the radar tower with a new one with the help of a crane. Initial remote tests, setup, and calibration of the radar followed. Finally, we trained local technicians on service and occupational health and safety for the operation of MMR-116, performed remote radar settings, and further testing.
The new radar brings more accurate radar products with higher measurement resolution and improved reliability. The data is processed and stored in IMS software from MicroStep-MIS. It allows the user to select the date, time, measurement product, and other settings according to which the background map with the measured data is modified.
Just several hours after the device was put into operation by our team, we managed to detect and track the catastrophic supercell storm event which resulted in destructive tornado, hails, and heavy rain in the Czech Republic. Even though the phenomena occurred at a limit of 200 km, the newly installed radar was able to detect a less pronounced feature called hooked echo. This radar signature is produced by rain, hail, and debris and is a typical indication of a tornado-producing supercell. It can be found in the lower parts of a storm cell caused by the inflow of air into a mesocyclone, resulting in a curved feature of reflectivity seen on the radar image. The supercell advanced towards the radar and we were able to monitor it all the way until its breakup. Such destructive supercells accompanied by F4 category tornados are extremely rare in the Central Europe region and very hard to forecast. One possible way of improving such forecasts is to improve the Doppler weather radar network with a higher number of smaller radars, where a shorter range comes with the benefit of higher resolution and smaller time steps between available data.
Besides a successful reference for our company, we believe that the new radar will bring a lot of valuable and useful data for the customer for the years to come.
