A NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar in Virginia, the United States, operated by National Weather Service, NOAA.
- Station
- Sterling (KLWX)
- Operator
- National Weather Service, NOAA
- Network
- NEXRAD WSR-88D
- Antenna
- 38.976° N, 77.487° W, 290 ft (89 m) above sea level
- Products
- Reflectivity, composite reflectivity, echo tops, vertically integrated liquid, velocity, correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity, specific differential phase (KDP), spectrum width
KLWX is the National Weather Service WSR-88D weather radar for Washington, Baltimore and northern Virginia. It stands at the NWS Baltimore/Washington forecast office in Sterling, Loudoun County, Virginia, next to Washington Dulles International Airport and about 40 km west of the centre of Washington.
The office's own tour page says the radar tower stands beside the office parking lot, outside the front door, and that since 2000 its data have been worked on AWIPS workstations, with neighbouring radars such as Pittsburgh's as backup. The NWS names the station Sterling, and the Radar Operations Center's site table lists the RDA location as Sterling with the Sterling office responsible for it. The office's area of responsibility runs to 44 counties across eastern West Virginia, northern and central Virginia, most of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Sterling was the first WSR-88D installed for operational daily forecasting, on 12 June 1992, according to the NEXRAD reference article; the rest of the network followed through 1997.
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.