A NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar in North Dakota, the United States, operated by National Weather Service, NOAA.
- Station
- Bismarck (KBIS)
- Operator
- National Weather Service, NOAA
- Network
- NEXRAD WSR-88D
- Antenna
- 46.771° N, 100.760° W, 1,658 ft (505 m) above sea level
- Products
- Reflectivity, composite reflectivity, echo tops, vertically integrated liquid, velocity, correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity, specific differential phase (KDP), spectrum width
KBIS is the NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar for Bismarck, North Dakota. It stands in Burleigh County about 4.5 km southeast of the city centre, with Lincoln about 5 km to the east and Mandan about 12 km to the northwest. The National Weather Service operates it from the Bismarck forecast office, which also holds the control facility for the Air Force radar near Minot, KMBX.
In May 2018 the bull gear that turns the antenna failed, and a six-person team from the Radar Operations Center in Norman, Oklahoma, with 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of equipment was needed to repair it; the office described the radar as 23 years old at the time. In March 2021 the pedestal was refurbished and replaced under the NEXRAD Service Life Extension Program, the third of four such projects after a new signal processor and a refurbished transmitter. During outages the office points people to the radars near Minot, Mayville, Aberdeen, Rapid City and Glasgow, Montana.
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.