A NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar in Pennsylvania, the United States, operated by National Weather Service, NOAA.
- Station
- Pittsburgh (KPBZ)
- Site
- Coraopolis
- Operator
- National Weather Service, NOAA
- Network
- NEXRAD WSR-88D
- Antenna
- 40.532° N, 80.218° W, 1,185 ft (361 m) above sea level
- Products
- Reflectivity, composite reflectivity, echo tops, vertically integrated liquid, velocity, correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity, specific differential phase (KDP), spectrum width
KPBZ is a NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar at Coraopolis in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, about 21 km northwest of downtown Pittsburgh. The National Weather Service lists it as Pittsburgh; the Radar Operations Center gives the antenna's location as Coraopolis. The Pittsburgh forecast office at 192 Shafer Road in Moon Township, near Pittsburgh International Airport, runs it and has been at that address since 1980. The office's history recalls an earlier radar there: a WSR-57 commissioned in 1966, with its tower beside the house on Shafer Road that held the upper air station, a couple of miles from the airport.
The Radar Operations Center's history records Pittsburgh as the first site to receive the Micro5/VME processor and software build 6.0, in May 1993. In October 2022 the office took the radar down for about seven days to replace its generator and fuel tanks under the Service Life Extension Program, a seven year, 150 million dollar program funded by the NWS, the Air Force and the FAA. Wikipedia's list of NEXRAD sites gives August 1994 as the start of its data record.
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.