Preliminary Study on Low-Level Turbulence Advisory System with Ku-Band Broadband Radar at Shonai Airport, Yamagata Prefecture.

SUMMARY During winter, at Shonai Airport located at the northern part of Japan, some low-level turbulence caused by tornadoes and downbursts often interrupts takeoffs and landings. This is a primary source of economic loss. It is well-known that a weather radar system is one of the most useful devices for observing various weather phenomena. However, it is difficult for conventional radar systems with a range resolution of several hundred meters and a temporal resolution of about 5 min to detect small-scale phenomena with a horizontal scale of several hundred meters and duration of several minutes. We have been developing a meteorological Ku-band broadband radar (BBR) that can detect small-scale phenomena with high resolution (a range resolution of several meters and a temporal resolution of about 1 min). We constructed an advisory system with the BBR in order to support aircraft operation at this airport, and performed a comparison between BBR data and flight data recorder (FDR) data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]