Word: radars
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...saturated in reproductions of works of art. Hence the more art books and magazines we thumb through, the less likely we are to see an original fresh, for the first time: reproduction precedes the work as the radar blip announces the incoming plane, removing its element of surprise. No well-known artist has ever been able to circumvent this; only obscure ones don't have the problem, and wish they...
...renovation. The 100-year-old agency has become a technology museum. Its forecasters still launch old- fashioned balloons -- 70 of them twice a day -- to take readings in the atmosphere. They use refrigerator-size computers that have less power than the average desktop machine. And they depend on radar equipment that runs on World War II-type vacuum tubes. This creaking system is dangerously prone to breakdowns. In one notorious instance in the winter of 1988, the radar sentinel in North Carolina was out of service for 10 days, during which a batch of tornadoes tore up the state, injuring...
...theoretical limit for a reasonably accurate forecast is less than two weeks. But within this time frame, a number of innovations have enhanced the meteorologist's prophetic powers. Supercomputers build mathematical models that show the interaction of wind, sun, temperature and humidity across the entire globe. And Doppler radar -- the technology at the heart of the Norman station -- is adept at spotting the destructive midsize squalls that have traditionally taken forecasters by surprise. By bouncing microwaves off the tiny droplets in the center of a cloud and picking up the echoes, Doppler systems can map the relative velocity of wind...
...RADAR WARS. When the Weather Service put out bids for the Nexrad system in % 1988, the choice came down to Sperry (now Unisys) and Raytheon. Sperry, which promised to build 121 machines for $386 million, was the low bidder. But two years into the job, the company insisted that it needed an additional $250 million to complete it. The government refused to pay, and the company refused to make any more radars. Now, with the Weather Service logging a record year for tornadoes (1,033 so far this year), the program is still stalled in court. A decision on whether...
COMPUTER MORASS. The Weather Service finally replaced its main number- crunching supercomputer -- a clunky Control Data machine -- with a slick new Cray Y-MP last year, and has been upgrading the software for its radar and satellite stations. To speed the dissemination of data and forecasts between its central office in Camp Springs, Md., and weather stations around the country, it is building AWIPS, the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System. However, AWIPS is already a year late. Meanwhile, a report by the National Research Council in May cast doubt on the ability of the NWS's small staff to manage...