A NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar in North Carolina, the United States, operated by National Weather Service, NOAA.
- Station
- Raleigh/Durham (KRAX)
- Site
- Clayton
- Operator
- National Weather Service, NOAA
- Network
- NEXRAD WSR-88D
- Antenna
- 35.665° N, 78.490° W, 348 ft (106 m) above sea level
- Products
- Reflectivity, composite reflectivity, echo tops, vertically integrated liquid, velocity, correlation coefficient, differential reflectivity, specific differential phase (KDP), spectrum width
KRAX is the NEXRAD WSR-88D weather radar for Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina. It stands at Clayton, about 18 km southeast of Raleigh, 12 km from Garner and 52 km from Durham. The National Weather Service operates it from the Raleigh forecast office on the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University, where the office has been since January 1994 after decades at Raleigh-Durham Airport. The Radar Operations Center and the NWS list the station as Raleigh/Durham with Clayton as its location.
In July 2017 technicians replaced the radar's signal processor, the first of four Service Life Extension Program upgrades meant to keep the WSR-88D network working into the 2030s. When KRAX is down, the office points people to the Blacksburg, Wakefield, Morehead City, Wilmington, Columbia and Greenville-Spartanburg radars and to the FAA's terminal Doppler radar at Raleigh.
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.