RAC Course Outline - Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD)
RAC Course Outline
The course outline and lesson material for the FY23 Radar Applications Course (RAC) is hosted here. The AWIPS Fundamentals course is a pre-requisite for RAC. For more information, see the AWIPS Fundamentals VLab RAC home page.
IMPORTANT: Some RAC lesson PDFs listed below are very large and require some time to load!!
Orientation
This lesson provides an overview of the course to students and local facilitators. Each section of the course will be touched.
Introduction to the WSR-88D System
This lesson is an overview of all of the main components and subcomponents of the WSR-88D system. In order to effectively operate the system and produce the best quality data, it is important to understand the basics of these six components and how data flows through the entire system.
Principles of Radar
This topic consists of 23 lessons that cover a variety of scientific principles about how Doppler radar in general, and the WSR-88D in particular, work. These lessons will cover many technical details of how the WSR-88D collects data, quality controls it, and processes it into base and derived products.
Velocity Interpretation
This topic consists of 3 lessons on the proper interpretation of radial Doppler velocity patterns. These lessons will present how to interpret Doppler velocity patterns under uniform, non-uniform, ambiguous, and meteorologically complex conditions.
Base and Derived Products
This topic will present the suite of Base and Derived Products and their applications. Also presented will be relevant information on the algorithms that generate the various products and displays.
Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor Products
This topic covers the various Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (MRMS) products that are available to NWS forecasters at their WFO via the SBN. These lessons will discuss the available products, key specifications of those products, and some relevant information on how they get generated.
Convective Storm Structure and Evolution
This topic describes some important thermodynamic and kinematic parameters developed to evaluate convective severe weather potential. The instruction tries to match the flow of the forecaster's analysis/interrogation process. The first lesson layouts what that workflow is. The subsequent lessons discuss how forecasters can identify storm type (and near storm environment), scan the CWA for potential threats, prioritize those possible threats, interrogate the threats more closely to then decide on what (if any) warning decision is necessary.
Flash Floods
This topic introduces the fundamental concepts behind flash flood meteorology and hydrology. Additionally, it discusses the products and tools available in AWIPS-2 that can be useful for flash flood decision-making.
Warning Fundamentals
This topic provides the fundamental knowledge and skills required to issue effective warnings. Training includes skills for basic proficiency in using some AWIPS storm interrogation applications such as WarnGen, and recommended strategies for polygon creation and placement.