A private Christian university, a Boy Scouts ranch and a college's health sciences school are part of a new weather research project aimed at boosting weather safety in the Oklahoma City metro area.
The University of Oklahoma's Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations, along with OU's Advanced Radar Research Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory, and NOAA’s National Weather Service are partnering with various organizations to install radars in different locations.
A radar was installed on Wednesday at the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City and two have been installed on a building on the Oklahoma Baptist University campus in Shawnee as part of a new research project, said Patrick Skinner, a research scientist with OU's Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations.
Skinner said several radars will be installed, including one at the John W. Nichols Scout Ranch in Oklahoma City and another in the Purcell area. He said the goal of the project is to enhance the radar network for storm predictions.
"The project itself is to deploy six or seven of these small radars around the main NEXRAD radar for the Oklahoma City metro area, and one of the requirements is that they're going to work best if they're about 25 miles away from the radar."
He said the weather agencies wanted to surround the NEXRAD radar with the smaller radars. OBU in Shawnee was a perfect location to install radars to create a circle around the larger NEXRAD radar.
Skinner said that along the way, the weather research agencies will be partnering with OBU and other organizations to provide educational opportunities for students.
He said the Shawnee university wasn't necessarily chosen because a tornado barrelled its way through the campus in 2023, but in his estimation, it provided motivation for plans to enhance the radar network.
Patrick Marsh, chief of science and support for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center in Norman and visiting professor of natural science at OBU, said he was excited when he learned that Skinner's agency had chosen OBU as its weather radar research partner in the east part of the Oklahoma City metro area.
As part of the project, two bistatic radars were installed on the rooftop of the Mabee Learning Center at OBU. The radars, each the size a large briefcase, have been integrated into the broader radar network for the metro area.
"One of the biggest weaknesses of weather radars is they can only measure the wind toward and away from the radar," Marsh said.
"By adding these radars at OBU, and combining them with others across central Oklahoma, this research project aims to improve NWS warning forecasters' confidence of thunderstorm, tornado and wind-damage potential through three-dimensional estimates of the true wind speed and direction within thunderstorms."
Marsh said providing educational opportunities for OBU students is an important part of the project.
Students of the Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated school, particularly those pursuing electrical engineering will have the opportunity for hands-on learning directly from principal investigators involved in the project. OBU leaders said the practical experience will enrich students' academic journey and help them after graduation.
"In competitive job markets, OBU engineering graduates will be able to point to their world-class education and highlight practical real-world, hands-on experiences with international experts," Marsh said.
He said the collaboration symbolizes scientific progress and a common goal for the safety and resilience of the community.
Marsh said the radars' data transmission capabilities, whether through Wi-Fi or 5G Cellular, will contribute to real-time weather monitoring and early warning systems, which is expected to make the campus and the surrounding community safer.
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