WAKEFIELD, Va. (WVEC) -- In the midst of a week with two nor'easters, officials at the local National Weather Service took down the radar system at the Wakefield office.
There are concerns this decision complicated the situation during nasty weather this week.
All radar information comes from equipment at the National Weather Service field office in Wakefield. The radar shows the precipitation coming down in the area, and the green and white layers on the map indicate rain and snow.
“Essentially these are our eyes,” 13News Now Meteorologist Tim Pandajis said.
Wednesday, while the storm made its way across Hampton Roads, the radar picture in the skies over our area was clear.
“Right now, we are seeing a blind spot across all of Hampton Roads,” Pandajis said. “We are getting ground confirmations, watching it on live-streaming video that it is raining; it is sleeting; it is snowing, but we cannot essentially follow that on radar.”
13News Now asked officials at the National Weather Service if it was a responsible decision to take down the radar knowing storms were coming.
“There’s nothing irresponsible about it,” said Jeff Orrock, Meteorologist in Charge at Wakefield. “The radar is not a tool that we use to forecast or warn for nor'easters or snow. We rely on a lot of other tools for that.”
For example, officials said while Wakefield is down, adjacent radars in other cities are available to help paint the picture. There were questions that picture was not complete.
“These get out to that distance and they are overshooting anything that's falling from the sky and the clouds,” Pandajis said.
So why not push off the updates? 13News Now was told the agency tries to keep to the schedule to avoid repair delays on other radar systems throughout the country.
This was basically a question of if not now, when. Meteorologists said if they have to take down the radar to make necessary upgrades, they'd rather do it in an event like this, instead of other conditions that frequently occur in Hampton Roads.
“You want to get the entire south and east coast done before severe weather season and hurricane season when you really have to have it to issue warnings that are actually protecting people,” Orrock said.
Last week, 13News Now reported on proposed budget cuts to this program. There is a possibility all the money might not be there next year to do these upgrades.
AKQ NEXRAD Transmitter Chassis Refurb by 13News Now on Scribd