The dawn of Doppler radar

The National Severe Storms Laboratory‘s 10cm Doppler weather radar begins full-time experimental operation in Norman, Oklahoma, just in time for the region’s active severe weather season. A surplus Air Force radar left over from the Distant Early Warning radar network (also known as the DEW Line) is installed and housed in a facility that’s also made of military surplus parts. There is no real-time display at first: researchers and meteorologists store the Doppler radar’s observations on computer tape that has to be processed and printed months after the fact, and compared to archived records from the existing WSR-57 radar at Norman.