DESIGN OF A DIGITAL SIMULATION OF THE POLAR PLANIMETER FOR CALCULATING AREAS OF ECHOES FROM RADAR WEATHER OBSERVATIONS.

The effort discussed in the report was to fulfill a requirement for expediently analyzing data on radar weather prediction techniques. Data is recorded at various radar stations, which make hourly weather observations on the local weather activity within a range of 200 miles. The observers record polar coordinate data that represents the echoes for that hour. Other parameters such as density, trend, tendency and height, are also recorded to provide a snapshot of the weather situation. Discussed herein is the design of the computer program RADNDX for 1 plotting a set of hourly snapshots of the radar screen, and 2 calculating an hourly Radar Index RI, which is the sum of the weighted echoes within a range of 50 miles of the station, divided by the area of the 50-mile circle. The program sorts the data into hourly batches, converts it into cartesian coordinates, and plots and labels all pertinent data to provide the hourly snapshots. Surveying techniques are applied through some specialized trigonometry to extract the area of those portions of the echoes within a given range of the station. Each area is weighted, and the sum is converted to an RI. The program checks all data for discrepancies, monitors itself to check for errors, and generates a list of pertinent information for further analysis. Author