NOAA extends partnership with Climavision for five years

October 08, 2024 at 08:30 AM EDT

Company’s growing radar network to enhance NSSL models and forecasts

In the three years since its founding, weather tech pioneer Climavision has advanced the state of the art in weather observation by working with public and private partners. Now, NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) can experimentally explore new ways to leverage the company’s groundbreaking radar data, thanks to a multi-year extension of their partnership.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241008155618/en/

Climavision's X-band radars cover areas where low-altitude data hasn't been available before. (Photo: Business Wire)

The NSSL originally entered a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) in 2022 with Climavision, a Louisville, Ky.-based company that’s building out a nationwide network of weather radars to supplement NEXRAD, the current backbone of the government’s national radar network. After successfully integrating data from Climavision’s radars into the NSSL’s Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) development system, both parties have agreed to extend the CRADA for five years and continue expanding it as Climavision’s network grows.

“Now that we’ve been able to fully integrate Climavision’s data, we’re already seeing opportunities for how it can assist in our research and product improvements,” said DaNa Carlis, NSSL’s director. “We’re excited to keep exploring the full potential of this collaboration.”

NSSL scientists will evaluate how the incorporation of Climavision’s radar data can enhance a wide range of its tools and forecast products. This includes the MRMS system, which is widely used across the weather enterprise for rainfall estimation, as well as severe weather interrogation, winter weather and transportation applications. Future plans include assimilating Climavision data into NSSL’s experimental Warn on Forecast System (WoFS).

Climavision’s network focuses on low level coverage of the boundary layer, providing access to high-quality observations of hazardous weather. The company’s network now includes 27 radars in 14 states and is growing rapidly.

“Our radar network is now covering multiple areas where low-altitude radar data simply hasn’t been available before,” said Chris Goode, co-founder and CEO of Climavision. “We’re excited to continue the collaboration with NSSL to show how this data can not only provide enhanced realtime severe weather detection, but greatly enhance forecast models.”

NOAA is currently exploring how public/private partnerships with companies like Climavision can help advance its observational and modeling capabilities quickly and efficiently.

About Climavision

Climavision brings together the power of a proprietary, high resolution supplemental weather radar network with its cutting-edge Horizon AI forecasting technology suite to close significant weather observation gaps and drastically improve forecast speed and accuracy. Climavision’s revolutionary approach to climate technology is poised to help reduce the economic risks of volatile weather on companies, governments, and communities alike. Climavision is backed by The Rise Fund, the world’s largest global impact platform committed to achieving measurable, positive social and environmental outcomes alongside competitive financial returns. The company is headquartered in Louisville, KY, with research and development operations in Raleigh, NC. To learn more, visit www.Climavision.com.