Hurricane Laura destroyed a major weather radar as Delta approaches Louisiana -

Thursday afternoon -- Mobile radar is on site in Lake Charles to address data gap

The National Weather Service and University of Oklahoma dispatched a mobile Doppler radar unit from Oklahoma to coastal Louisiana in order to provide crucial weather data during the landfall of Hurricane Delta on Friday. The move was made necessary after Hurricane Laura’s vicious 150-mph winds destroyed the permanent radar station located in Lake Charles when it struck there on Aug. 27.

Data from the radar, known as the Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching, or SMART, radar, is being made available in real time through a partnership with AT&T and The Weather Channel, according to a Weather Service press release.

Without the main Lake Charles radar, forecasters wouldn’t be able to see weather features in the lower atmosphere, below about 12,500 feet in altitude, including potential tornadoes and flood-inducing rain bands that will occur when Hurricane Delta hits the same region Friday.

Hurricane and surge warnings issued as strengthening Delta churns toward Louisiana

“We will do our best to augment the existing radar coverage in the vicinity of the landfall of Hurricane Delta," said Michael Biggerstaff, a meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma who leads the SMART radar teams, in a statement.

The NOAA Radar Operations Center in Oklahoma is also involved in the deployment. “With the outage of the Lake Charles NEXRAD, it is great to collaborate with our colleagues at the University of Oklahoma to provide valuable supplemental weather data to NWS forecasters and decision-makers during this unprecedented hurricane season,” said Terrance Clark, Radar Operations Center director, in a statement.

As of Thursday afternoon, the truck-mounted radar unit was in place and about to begin scanning the skies, according to NOAA spokeswoman Keli Pirtle.

Original article published Thursday morning:

When Hurricane Laura made landfall in southwest Louisiana with 150 mph winds and a 17-foot storm surge, it was the most powerful storm to strike the Bayou State in more than 160 years. The storm caused an estimated $10 billion or more in damage, ravaging the city of Lake Charles and destroying the local National Weather Service office’s Doppler radar.

Now, another significant hurricane is bearing down on coastal Louisiana — and the radar remains inoperable.

Hurricane Delta, set to become the 10th landfall-named storm to strike the United States during the record-breaking 2020 hurricane season, won’t be as strong as Laura. But it will still threaten the coastline with wind gusts topping 100 mph and a potentially destructive storm surge. Farther inland, heavy rain, strong winds and a few tornadoes are possible.

Weather models on Thursday indicated Delta’s eventual landfall was most likely Friday night near or west of Vermilion Bay, La., a bit southwest of Lafayette. That’s prime real estate for the Lake Charles-based radar, 75 miles to the west-northwest.

Instead, other radars — like the one in Slidell, La., near New Orleans, or on Fort Polk in the boot of Louisiana — are farther away. That means they’ll scan the land-falling storm with lesser resolution, and at a higher elevation angle.

As a result, there will be no data below 12,500 feet over Vermilion Bay. While satellites and NOAA aircraft can easily track a hurricane from above, near-surface data as the storm makes landfall could be tough to come by.

That will have a bearing on flash flooding and tornado events as they unfold.

“It’s definitely going to pose a challenge for us,” said Stephen Carboni, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service in Lake Charles. “Most of the [activity] associated with tropical cyclones and the signatures that we look for for tornadoes are short-lived and relatively shallow.”

By shallow, Carboni refers to their altitude. In most tornadic, or rotating thunderstorms, the spinning part of the storm extends upward 20,000 or 30,000 feet. But in the tiny spinning elements within the spiral tropical rain bands that feed into a hurricane, columns of rotation may only be a mile or two high.

That makes it possible for more distant radars, like that in Slidell or Fort Polk, to “overshoot” the low-level precursors of a tornado. Likewise, much of the heavy precipitation in hurricanes occurs below 10,000 feet, so it will be more difficult for the radar to estimate rainfall rates.

“We’ll do the very best we can with what data we have available,” Carboni said. His office issued 30 tornado warnings and eight flash flood warnings during and after Laura’s passage.

The Lake Charles weather office was evacuated before the onset of Laura’s vicious winds, which gusted to 132 mph at the Lake Charles Airport. Upon returning, meteorologists found the radar dome obliterated, a mangled web of shrapnel dangling from the antenna. There’s no word yet when the radar may be returned to service.

It’s not the first time a hurricane has wrecked a weather radar responsible for surveying it. In 2017, Maria’s Category 4 onslaught in Puerto Rico wiped out the island’s main weather radar. Forecasters relied on machine learning until two temporary radars were erected. In Lake Charles, a stopgap has yet to be put in place.

After Hurricane Maria wiped out the weather radar, a stopgap arrived in Puerto Rico

“I know the [Radar Operations Center], the folks from headquarters in Norman, [Okla.], came down and salvaged what parts they could and removed any lingering damaged parts,” Carboni said. “They put a light up there since we are on an airport. They did what they could to secure what it is until it’s reconditioned.”

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