Electronics and Systems Support

Heat Wave Continues in the West; Critical Fire Weather Conditions in the High Plains

An anomalously early heat wave will continue to intensify and expand across the West and Southwest as the week progresses. Numerous daily and potentially monthly record highs are expected to be broken. Critical fire weather conditions will continue over the next couple of days across portions of the High Plains as gusty winds and dry conditions persist. 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.