National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce
...PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...

The weather radar used by the National Weather Service Forecast 
Office in Biorka Island will be down for approximately one week 
beginning on or about 12 Sep 2017 for technicians to install an important 
technological upgrade. The work on the WSR-88D has been scheduled 
to minimize any potential impacts to office operations and will be
delayed if hazardous weather is forecast. 

During the outage, radar coverage is unavailable.

A crew will install a new signal processor, which replaces 
obsolete technology, improves processing speed and data quality, 
provides added functionality, and supports IT security.

This is the first of four major upgrades, known as service life 
extension projects, planned in the next five years to replace and 
refurbish major components of the 20 year old WSR-88Ds and to keep
the radars operational into the 2030s. The $150M investment is 
being made by the three organizations that use these radars, the 
NOAA National Weather Service, United States Air Force and Federal
Aviation Administration. The other service life extension 
projects include refurbishing the transmitter, pedestal, and 
equipment shelters. 

The tri-agency Radar Operations Center, which supports the 
radars, estimates it will take about 10 months to upgrade the 
signal processor on all 159 operational WSR-88Ds.