Electronics and Systems Support

Active Pattern for the Center of the Nation

Severe thunderstorms, excessive rainfall, critical fire weather are all in the outlook today and into this last weekend of April. Very large hail, severe wind gusts, and a couple strong tornadoes will all be possible across the central and southern Plains today. Flash flooding also possible for portions of the Plains and Mississippi Valley. Critical fire weather conditions for Southern High Plains Read More >

Electronics and Systems Support

Forecasting the weather requires a significant amount of sophisticated computers, observing systems, and communications equipment. Our office has a staff of four individuals that work to service, maintain, and program the electronics and information technology equipment that you've seen on the tour. The staff includes an Electronics Systems Analyst (ESA), two Electronics Technicians (ET's), and an Information Technology Officer (ITO).

The ESA and ET's maintain and repair the KRAX Doppler radar, nine Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) units across our CWA, the Upper Air or Radiosonde (Weather Balloon) system, most of the communications equipment, and the station's computers.

The Information Technology Officer (ITO) writes and implements computer programs and troubleshoots existing programs. The ITO also analyzes current systems (networking, computer security, etc.) in order to find where improvements could be made. The improvements are related to product generation (i.e. making forecast products easier to produce and more useful to the public) and dissemination.