Validation of first generation CASA radars with CSU-CHILL

The National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) [McLaughlin et al., 2005] will be deploying the first generation of an automated network of four low-power, X-band, polarimetric, Doppler radars in Oklahoma in spring 2006. This radar network, known as NETRAD, will map precipitation and detect, locate and track severe weather events such as tornadoes through coordinated interaction of all its radar nodes via a real-time, closed-loop control system. A prototype of the sensing node has been completed, and was deployed for the first time in Colorado side-by-side with the Colorado State University's CHILL radar (S-band). During three weeks of operation the CASA NETRAD sensing node prototype, referred to as MA-1, underwent experiments to calibrate and characterize the performance of different system components. MA-1 also scanned through two different weather events simultaneously with CHILL, generating a co-located and synchronized data set at both X-band and S-band. The S-band data set was used as a comparison benchmark. This paper will present the CASA NETRAD sensing node calibration results, and a comparison of the results obtained at X-band and S-band for the simultaneously scanned weather events.