New Weather Radar Arrives in Northwest PA Just Ahead of Winter Weather
LOUISVILLE, KY, and PLEASANTVILLE, PA – As residents of Erie and Northwestern Pennsylvania prepare for another winter, they’ll have a new tool in place to give them more warning of winter weather than ever before.
Since the 1990s, the National Weather Service has monitored severe weather across the country using NEXRAD S-band radars. However, gaps can exist between these systems as the radar beam moves higher in the atmosphere the further it gets from the radar location. The distance between the NEXRADs in Cleveland and Buffalo created just such a gap in Northwest Pennsylvania and along the Lake Erie shore – an area that’s especially prone to lake-effect snow and other weather than can develop at lower altitudes.
Louisville-based weather tech pioneer Climavision has now effectively closed that gap, by installing one of its gap-filling X-band radars in Pleasantville. The new radar will provide low-altitude coverage extending to the lake shore and beyond, and its high-resolution technology is particularly effective at tracking the kinds of winter weather, such as snow squalls, that have been challenging to detect in the past.
