Vaisala Weather Radar welcomed with excitement

Weather radars have been used to observe precipitation for over 50 years. The new Vaisala Weather Radar complements Vaisala's full offering of remote and in-situ sensing products and provides superior data quality, more accurate measurements and high availability for different applications. Vaisala is also the first meteorological hardware provider that has a complete offering of services in its product portfolio. The Vaisala Weather Radar family starts with two C-band weather radar models: WRM100 and WRM200.

The Vaisala Weather Radar

In 2002 the decision was made to develop the Vaisala Weather Radar in cooperation with the University of Helsinki, Colorado State University, Sigmet Inc. and various research institutions and customers. This prototype radar was installed at Helsinki University in Kumpula in late 2004 to focus on testing and world-class mid-latitude weather research and education using dual polarization weather radar.

The acquisition of Sigmet Inc. at the beginning of 2006 was very important for developing the Vaisala Weather Radar competences and helping us in the weather radar market entry. Sigmet is the world's leading weather radar signal processor and application software maker.

Vaisala makes significant innovations

Ever since the development project started, Vaisala's goal was to make new innovations in weather radar measurements, especially in dual polarization. Usually, weather radars send and receive microwaves at one polarization, usually horizontal. The Vaisala Weather Radar transmits and receives both horizontally and vertically polarized waves. The first innovation was to apply dual polarimetric measurements to classify hydrometeors (e.g. hail, graupel, rain, snow, etc.).

A new concept for antenna-pedestal design dramatically reduces the momentum of inertia required for antenna movement. This allows faster and more accurate positioning of the antenna. Also, the total weight of the antenna with pedestal is only 1500 kg - allowing significant reduction in infrastructure costs and easier mounting.

A key objective in creating the new family of weather radars was to lower maintenance costs through the use of active remote monitoring and control. Weather radars are very often installed in remote unmanned locations that are hard to reach. The Vaisala Weather Radar system is a cost-effective solution for most weather applications.