A NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar in Wisconsin, the United States, operated by National Weather Service, NOAA.
- Station
- Milwaukee (KMKX)
- Site
- Dousman
- Operator
- National Weather Service, NOAA
- Network
- NEXRAD WSR-88D
- Antenna
- 42.968° N, 88.551° W, 958 ft (292 m) above sea level
- Products
- Reflectivity, composite reflectivity, echo tops, vertically integrated liquid, velocity, correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity, specific differential phase (KDP), spectrum width
KMKX is the NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar at the National Weather Service Milwaukee/Sullivan office in Sullivan Township, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, about 30 miles west of Milwaukee. The office describes itself as about 3 miles south-east of the town of Sullivan and 45 miles east of Madison, with a Dousman postal address at N3533 Hardscrabble Road; the NWS Radar Operations Center and NCEI give the radar site as Dousman. The office has forecast and severe weather warning responsibility for south-east and south-central Wisconsin.
The NWS lists the station as Milwaukee and NCEI records it with WBAN number 04834, its record beginning in September 1995. The NWS radar list gives the antenna elevation as 1,023 feet and the owner as the NWS. In August 2018 the transmitter was refurbished under the NEXRAD Service Life Extension Program, with breakers and cables original to the radar replaced.
Sullivan is about 6 km and Dousman about 8 km from the antenna. Oconomowoc is about 17 km to the north-east, Waukesha about 26 km to the east, Watertown about 29 km to the north-west, Milwaukee's centre about 53 km to the east and Madison about 70 km to the west. Racine and Kenosha are about 68 km and 73 km to the south-east.
The office documents a 36 turbine wind farm on Butler Ridge in Herman Township, Dodge County, about 30 miles north of the radar and within its line of sight. The rotating blades show up as an area of precipitation and contaminate the velocity data, and the clutter filter does not remove them because the blades are moving. 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.