A NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar in Virginia, the United States, operated by National Weather Service, NOAA.
- Station
- Norfolk (KAKQ)
- Site
- Wakefield
- Operator
- National Weather Service, NOAA
- Network
- NEXRAD WSR-88D
- Antenna
- 36.984° N, 77.007° W, 157 ft (48 m) above sea level
- Products
- Reflectivity, composite reflectivity, echo tops, vertically integrated liquid, velocity, correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity, specific differential phase (KDP), spectrum width
KAKQ is the National Weather Service WSR-88D weather radar for Norfolk, Richmond and south-eastern Virginia. It stands beside the town of Wakefield in Sussex County, about 66 km west of Norfolk and 75 km south-east of Richmond.
The NWS Wakefield forecast office, at 10009 General Mahone Highway in Wakefield, is responsible for the radar, and the NWS owns it. The NWS API names the station Norfolk and NCEI's record carries it as Norfolk Rich with Wakefield as an alias, while the NWS radar list and the Radar Operations Center's site table give the site as Wakefield. The NWS radar list gives the antenna elevation as 255 ft.
The WSR-88D network was deployed between 1992 and 1997, and its sites were upgraded to dual polarization between 2010 and 2013.
Radar shows rain, snow and hail, not cloud, and nothing below its lowest beam; far from the antenna the beam passes high above the ground.