New radar HORUS is being developed at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma

NORMAN, Oklahoma (KTRK) — The 13 Alert Radar network is today’s most powerful radar technology and gives our team of meteorologists the ability to track severe storms more accurately. But in the heart of Tornado Alley, researchers are testing the next generation of weather radars. As Houston’s severe weather leader, ABC13 Meteorologist Elyse Smith was invited to Oklahoma to witness the power of this technology and how it can change weather forecasting forever.

On the campus of the University of Oklahoma, at the Advance Radar Research Center, is where we find HORUS, the most advanced weather radar in the world. It’s a dual-pole, fully digital phased array radar that’s in a league of its own.

“It’s the first fully digital polarimetric S-band radar in the world,” says lead engineer and University of Oklahoma professor Dr. David Schvartzman.

He explains how their radar HORUS, named after the Egyptian God of the Sky, works compared to today’s radar technology.

The main difference is the number of antennas. The weather radars widely used today, like those at each National Weather Service office, are known as dish antennas. It’s a single antenna that spins in a circle scanning the sky both vertically and horizontally, a phenomenon known as dual-polarization. And because it’s a single antenna, it takes about five to eight minutes for the dish to spin around enough to scan the entire sky.

With HORUS, Dr. Schvartzman tells ABC13 the radar has 64 antennas.

“Instead of just forming a single beam to scan the atmosphere, you can form multiple beams in different directions,” David said. That means the radar can update every 15 to 20 seconds with new images of the atmosphere. That’s 15 times faster than today’s weather radars, and the results will be lifesaving.

“When you’re thinking of a tornado,” David said. “It can be in a completely different place after five minutes. But if you’re looking at it every 15 seconds, you can get a much more accurate representation of what the storm is doing.”

Not only is this a scientific feat, but the radar itself is built to be more resilient than the machinery used in today’s weather radars. That’s why a radar like HORUS could one day be the future radar of the National Weather Service.

Dr. Bob Palmer is the director of the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma. He tells ABC13 that the current radars at weather service offices, which have been in operation since the early 90s, should be replaced by the year 2040.

“I think people don’t realize they rely on weather radar data that’s run by the National Weather Service every day,” Dr. Palmer said. “And since we rely on it, you tend to take it for granted sometimes.”

Many of the researchers who developed HORUS hope that their radar is an example of what could be implemented at local NWS offices in the next few years. Officials at the National Weather Center tell ABC13 that those decisions will be made within the next five to 10 years.

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